Sunday, June 18, 2006

Hail to the blogs! Mark Rose tackles the Bosnian "Pyramids"
One might have thought that the Ice Age Bosnian pyramid story would collapse like a bad soufflé, but no. Mainstream media has become somewhat more critical of stories emanating from Visoko, but much of the real work in dissecting the claims has appeared on blogs and message boards, such as The Hall of Ma'at (see "Pseudoscience in Cyberspace"). Unfortunately, the mainstream folks haven't picked up on much of this. Meanwhile, the professional community has become more outspoken, notably with a recent field trip to the site by Anthony Harding, who is president of the European Association of Archaeologists, and in response to a proposed UNESCO mission to the site.


That's actually where blogs are their most useful. This sort of story is, except for the initial claim, pretty much under the radar of most news organizations, and even if they do investigate it more, any sort of follow-up will usually be found as a footnote on page E-22. Blogs, populated by interested professionals, can spend the time to really look into these esoteric topics and get the word out that way.