I devoted yesterday afternoon and most of today to (finally) producing the updated documentation for Version 3 of the ForagerNet3_Demography model, one of the agent-based models that I've been working with. You can read all about it on this page, and you can even download the raw code if you like. Files and citation information for the model are also available on OpenABM.org.

I used a version of this model (implemented in Repast J rather than Repast Simphony) in a recent paper published in Uncertainty and Sensitivity Analysis in Archaeological Computational Modeling (edited by Marieka Brouwer Burg, Hans Peeters, and William Lovis).

Over the summer I used to model to generate data for a paper on the minimum viable population (MVP) size of human groups. That's in the editing stages now -- hopefully I'll be able to get it done and submitted somewhere before the Christmas break.

​Onward.

The gears of science almost always turn more slowly then I would like. It was about a year ago that I first hatched the idea of the Kirk Project, and I've just now submitted my first formal publication related to describing and understanding variability in Kirk points from the Southeast.  The paper, titled "A Preliminary Analysis of Haft Variability in South Carolina Kirk Points," will be published in the next issue of South Carolina Antiquities.

The paper considers haft variation in a sample (n = 46 total) of Kirk points from the Larry Strong Collection (n = 41, Allendale County, South Carolina) and the Nipper Creek cache (n = 5, Richland County, South Carolina). The Larry Strong portion of the sample is a large "long time” assemblage that contains Kirk points from the full range of time those points were produced in the region. The Nipper Creek cache, in contrast, is a “short time” assemblage that was produced during a small window of time.  Comparison of these assemblages can be used to explore which aspects of haft morphology may be carrying useful stylistic information that is sensitive to change through time and, potentially, patterned in ways that can eventually tell us something meaningful about Kirk societies. This table summarizes the sample and provides links to the downloadable 3D models that I used (I also posted the table on my Data page). 

My analysis focuses on various aspects of shape as characterized by a series of landmarks placed on 3D models. Although 3D models are the starting point, I purposefully performed the preliminary analysis in the paper in only two dimensions (i.e., utilizing just the shape of the outline of the haft region and getting rid of data related to thickness).

The main take-away point from the paper is that shape variation in the lateral haft margins appears to be a better candidate for capturing stylistic change through time (and potentially also stylistic variability across space) than the the morphology of the basal edge and the overall length:width proportions of the haft. The "short time" Nipper Creek assemblage is more consistent in the degree of haft flare and shape of the lateral/basal junction than the "long time" Larry Strong assemblage, which is what one would expect if design of the lateral haft margins was strongly influenced by some kind of cultural-bound choice (i.e, if lateral haft morphology is essentially isochrestic). This is a potentially important observation, as basal edge shape and treatment are often thought to be good attributes upon which to base “type” distinctions that are presumed to have temporal significance. While basal edge morphology appears to account for the greatest amount of variability overall in the shape analysis, it may not be strongly linked to style within the Kirk Corner Notched cluster (and may, in fact, be linked to function through haft repair and maintenance). It will be important to sort this out going forward to avoid inclusion of non-stylistic variability in a stylistic analysis.

I'll let you know when the paper is available. In the meantime, I'll be working on expanding the analysis in several different directions. I'm hoping that making my primary data sources (i.e., the 3D models) available as freely downloadable files will encourage others to do the same. We're really not doing ourselves any favors by not taking better advantage of the data-sharing potential offered by the digital age.

Funds to support inventorying and analysis of the Larry Strong Collection were provided by the Archaeological Research Trust.

If you have anything more than a passing interest in understanding the "fringe" world, you're familiar with the Nephilim. These offspring of angels and humans, despite being mentioned by name only three times in the bible (Genesis 6, Ezekiel 32, and Numbers 13), are a growth industry. Their resume is no longer limited to serving as the whip hand of the conspiracy-rich bowels of occult Christianity but now also includes significant penetration into popular culture.  They've been adopted by vampire enthusiasts and they've got their own band and a role-playing game. The concept of human-supernatural sex was given some good PR by this Katy Perry song.  

While the Nephilim haven't reached Ancient Aliens and Atlantis status yet, they're clearly going in the right direction. At this rate, they'll probably be openly fielding political candidates by the time the 2020 election cycle begins.

Expanding the Nephilim franchise won't be without it's tensions. In traditional circles, Nephilim (at least in Genesis 6:4) are thought to be the offspring of male angels and female humans. Those "mighty men" apparently continued to pass on the supernatural genes, corrupting the human bloodline with their Nephilim DNA (albeit in a more diluted form as time went on). While I'm not sure what Nephilim fundamentalists think of the possibility of female Nephilim in this scenario, market realists will immediately recognize that limiting the illicit/supernatural Nephilim sex fantasies to males on females (and males on animals, as the case may be) will constrain growth. For those of you worried about the stagnation of Nephilim market capitalization, I'm happy to report a data point that suggests the forces of democratization continue to gain ground:

Discuss.

"Dumpster fire" is surely one of the more over-used phrases of 2016. I'm going to throw some more garbage in and use it one more time:

Species with Amnesia by Robert Sepher (2015) is the literary equivalent of a dumpster fire.

My students and I read this book as part of the section on Ice Age Civilization in my Forbidden Archaeology class this semester. I chose the book because it checked the boxes for many of the issues that I wanted to address, and I could find no existing, detailed, online appraisal of it. As I read the book, I made of list of claims that I thought would be good for the students to evaluate (and I also found many instances of plagiarism without really trying). I ended up with far more topics than students, so I just picked some of Sepehr's bolder proclamations and handed them out. 

​It's hard to know where to even start with this thing, so we'll start at the very beginning (a very fine place to start).

Sepehr begins his 143-page attack on facts and logic by trying to discredit paleoanthropology and the study of human evolution. He has to, because his fantasy argument about an ancient super race of white Atlanteans depends on all that fossil evidence from Africa being grossly misinterpreted and the entire body of knowledge about human origins (except for outdated racist ideas about Cro-Magnon) being wrong. As discussed in this blog post, Sepehr focuses on the fraudulent Piltdown skull as evidence that science can get things wrong (duh) and then misunderstands the Lucy fossil and misrepresents Owen Lovejoy. To anyone familiar with the fossil evidence for hominin evolution, the first chapter is ridiculous.

And it only gets worse from there.

In the second chapter, Sepehr introduces the idea that "race" and "species" are equivalent and that human "races" are actually separate species. This isn't Sepehr's original thought, of course, but one handed down from the slavers and Nazis of the last centuries. Anticipating the argument that "species can't interbreed, therefore races are not species," Sepehr provides examples of inter-breeding among different animal species. He claims that it was race-mixing that diluted the superior genes of the Atlanteans and doomed their society.

Take a wild guess what "race" those Atlanteans were? A huge shock: they were tall, fair-haired, blue-eyed Aryans. Sepehr tries to link multiple exoduses from Atlantis to the succession of technological/chronological periods used to describe Upper Paleolithic Europe, focusing on the "Cro-Magnon" peoples of Europe as original emigres from Atlantis 40,000 years ago. Unsurprisingly, he describes Cro-Magnon as tall, fair-haired, blue-eyed people with high frequencies of RH- blood. None of those claims is supported by evidence. His identification of "Cro-Magnon" with "Nordic/Aryan" is not supported by any real data, and his assertions about the genetics of Cro-Magnon remaining unchanged for 28,000 contradicts things he says later in the book (about the evolution of blue eyes, for example, which only evolved 10,000-6,000 years ago).

Sepehr selectively uses an old literature to support his claim that Cro-Magnon spread into Europe from west to east, which is what one would expect if they came from a continent in the Atlantic. Modern data show, however, that the Aurignacian technology that was probably associated with the earliest anatomically modern humans in Europe actually spread from east to west, not west to east. The most recent Neanderthal remains are found in Iberia, consistent with modern human populations coming in from the other direction.

In order to try to make his Cro-Magnons more like what we'd expect "advanced" Atlanteans to be like, Sepehr attributes to them advanced astronomical knowledge (based on Paleolithic cave art). He also claims that Cro-Magnon peoples had agriculture, correctly noting (page 49) that "without agriculture, Atlantis, or any other antediluvian civilization, is no more than a myth."  He asserts that Cro-Magnon domesticated the horse, but the student who was assigned that topic didn't turn in his work. 

Sepehr blames rising sea levels at the end of the Ice Age for sinking Atlantis, stating that sea levels 400 feet lower would have exposed a large landmass in the middle of the Atlantic. Yeah, right. 

Sepehr attempts to identify traces of an advanced global culture run by white-skinned, blue-eyed people, tapping a lot of the usual suspects in the process. He goes over the familiar ground of misunderstanding Haplogroup X and advocating for the presence of Ice Age Europeans in the New World, wrongfully identifying indigenous Chilean peoples as having "Aryan" features, attributing the features of the Guanche of the Canary Islands to Atlantean heritage, and finding blue-eyed people in the New World and China.

And, of course, what ancient Aryan adventure would be complete without finding a few out-of-place swastikas around the world to tie the whole fantasy together.

And near the end, just to make sure the reader is thoroughly impressed by inconsistencies and lack of logic, he claims that Aryan Phoenicians brought agriculture to the New World in 1500 BC. 

But wait . . . didn't you say that the original refugees of Atlantis had agriculture in 40,000 BC? And that Atlanteans had colonized North and South America by the end of the Ice Age? Because they had blue eyes? And Haplogroup X?  But we know that the domestication of maize actually 

Oh never mind. Just light the whole thing on fire. 

It is fitting that the book ends with a typo:

"Whatever the cause of these periodic cataclysms on earth, it is clear is that there was a massive even that separates the Pleistocene (ice age) from our current Holocene age roughly 11,500 years ago. Rapidly melting ice caps caused a global rise in sea levels, submerging island and coastal communities world wide. Once we confront this, we may discover our historic cradle of civilization was never out-of-Africa, but out-of-Aftantis."

-The excavation at the purported site of the "Zarahemla Temple," which I first wrote about here, has apparently already taken place.

As I indicated in my last post on the topic, all indications were that the "temple" property was purchased in January of 2015 (for $300,000) with intent to excavate in the spring of 2015. The (now-defunct) webpage for the project proclaimed that a professional ground-penetrating radar (GPR) survey had identified the location of a rectangular wooden "temple structure" with walls extending 5-22' below the ground surface. Dr. John Melancon, ridiculously billed as "one of the few American archaeologists fully certified to conduct digs in Israel because of his training in Hebrew archaeology" was supposed to head up the investigation.

I found a series of photos of the excavation on the Hidden in the Heartland group on Facebook. The photos were posted over a period of several days in May of 2015. They show Wayne May, Melancon (I think), a camera crew, and a gaggle of volunteers excavating in a field. Unsurprisingly, the photos do not show the discovery or excavation of a 20' wooden wall associated with a burned temple. The only "artifacts" pictured are a table full unidentifiable rocks, including a small round one which seems to have been the star of the show (many pictures of that).  Over the course of several days, the strategy apparently moved from hand excavation blocks (n = 2?), to dowsing, to bulldozing, all apparently in effort to locate a wall that's not there. 

If you enjoy looking at photos of a sloppy, sandy excavation that careens from optimism to desperation over the course of just a few days, I encourage you to go and look at the photos yourself (I suspect they won't be there for long). Here are few samples:

Anyone with any serious archaeological background will immediately recognize this effort for what it is: an undisciplined treasure hunt. Here's my summary on what I think happened (I wasn't there, of course, so this is conjecture). The goal of this effort was to find a buried wall that someone told them was there (based on GPR data that they didn't understand). The effort begins with using actual tape measures, nails, and string to lay out excavation blocks. These blocks were placed in areas where they should have come down on the walls of Zarahemla. After starting relatively carefully, however, impatience quickly sets in when all that materializes is more and more sand. Various additional "technologies" (i.e., metal detectors and dowsing rods) are employed to solve the mystery of where the walls are, and the units are aggressively dug downward because surely those walls are down there somewhere. This effort begins by tunneling down by hand in the excavation blocks, but even eventually impatience wins here also and mechanical excavation equipment is desperately used to blow a big crater into the earth. And still there are no walls. And so the dirt is pushed back in the holes and everyone goes home.

Or perhaps I'm totally wrong and this was a very careful, precise effort that located and responsibly documented all kinds of cultural wonders. There was film crew there, so maybe the "temple excavations" appear in one of the episodes of "Hidden in the Heartland." I hope they do -- then I can see if I'm right.

At least some of the chipping debris (shown as Feature 1 in the profile drawing) can be fitted back together, suggesting that the deposit was created when prehistoric peoples sat at that spot to make stone tools.  The deposit is thought to be Middle Archaic in age (dating to perhaps 4000-3000 BC) because of a quartz Guilford point that was recovered from the slump at the base of the profile. 

The goals of the excavations will be to: (1) continue straightening, documenting, and stabilizing the exposed vertical wall; (2) collect controlled samples of artifacts that can be used to understand the 5000-year-long occupational sequence of the levee; and (2) expose discrete cultural deposits so that they can be mapped and excavated.
 
Hand excavation will be used to straighten and plumb the vertical cut, exposing a long profile that will be documented during the field school. Dr. Christopher Moore (SCIAA) will assist in interpreting the exposed natural and cultural deposits. After exposure, straightened sections of the wall will be protected from further damage using landscape fabric and wooden buttressing.
 
Hand excavation blocks will be opened in two areas. One 3 m x 2 m excavation block will be placed on top of the levee a safe distance from the existing vertical exposure. Excavations will proceed in 10 cm levels in 1 m x 1 m units, screening all sediments and creating plan maps at the base of each level. Discrete deposits (such as hearth features, storage pits, postholes, or in situ deposits of chipping debris) will be documented and excavated.
 
A 2 m x 2 m excavation block will be opened near the base of the existing vertical exposure, enlarged as needed for safety.  The purpose of this excavation area will be to extend the profile vertically downward and explore any cultural deposits present beneath the presumed Middle Archaic zone.  

Enrollment is capped at 12.  This should be a lot of fun.  It's a great spot for a field school: it's close, it's known to contain complex and interesting archaeological deposits, and it's cared for by a very supportive landowner.

If you're a student interested in taking this course, please email me with any questions:  aawhite@mailbox.sc.edu.

Stay tuned!

Last weekend I wrote this post about a planned excavation by Heartland Mormons to search for the temple of Zarahemla in Iowa. That excavation was justified by a map produced via a ground-penetrating radar survey. Today, thanks to a comment on a recent blog post by Jason Colavito's blog post, I learned of another example of ground-penetrating radar data being used to propel the excavation of what is almost certainly a fantasy, this time in association with Oak Island.

First, an update on the Zarahemla excavation.

The webpage for the project proclaimed that a professional ground-penetrating radar (GPR) survey had identified the location of a rectangular wooden "temple structure" with walls extending 5-22' below the ground surface. I pointed out that that level of specificity was impossible using GPR and questioned (among other things) how those outlines were determined and how they could possible serve as the basis for an actual archaeological excavation. Coincidentally or not, that webpage (dated January 2015) is not currently available, and the entire Book of Mormon Evidence site is currently "under maintenance."

I couldn't find any details about the excavation, but I suspect it has already taken place. Blog reader and friend of archaeological reality Mike Morgan located a report of the record of purchase, showing that the 13.8 acre "temple of Zarahemla" parcel was sold to Zarahemla Holdings, LLC, on January 20, 2015. Another of my online friends told me that he recalls seeing images posted on Facebook showing an excavation in progress some time ago, but those images were later removed. That an excavation was planned for the spring of 2015 is also supported by comments on message boards like this one, posted the day before the sale of the parcel closed.

A comparison of aerial photographs of the parcel from June 2014 (before the sale; image from Google Earth) and summer of 2015 (image from the Iowa Geographic Map Server) suggests that excavations were, indeed, undertaken in the area identified as the "temple" in the first half of 2015. The light-colored areas marked with arrows appear to show the areas of backdirt piles and newly-filled excavation areas. Those areas correspond to the location of the eastern wall of the "temple" (unfortunately, since the webpage is gone, I can't reproduce their aerial with the "temple" superimposed [Update: you can see the figure on this website]).

[Update: I found this image from June 2015 that reportedly shows Wayne May, apparently dowsing, in an excavation at the "temple" site.]

A machine excavation into the "temple" area would have quickly revealed that there was no buried, 15-foot-tall wooden wall. Without seeing the raw GPR data and details of how it was processed, there's really no telling what kinds of anomalies, if any, the survey actually detected. But I presume that if the Temple of Zarahemla had been found we would have heard something about it by now. So my money is on nothing. I just hope that no real cultural deposits have been damaged so far in this pursuit.

And now for the new example.

This webpage, dated the 28th of October, 2016, makes a bold proclamation:

"OAK ISLAND RELATED UNDERGROUND FACILITY FOUND ON MAINLAND LUNENBURG COUNTY, NOVA SCOTIA!"

Here we go again.

You can read all the Shakespeare stuff and then get down to the brass tacks of the "proof" that (1) there's an underground facility and (2) it's related the mystery of Oak Island.  That "proof," apparently comes down to GPR data. Here's what the site says:

"In March 2015, I conducted GPR scanning around the X marked boulder and have had the files analyzed by very skilled GPR analysis experts. Disturbances in subsurface features can be seen in the data. The experts say such disturbed structures should not be present in normal ground conditions.

In the summer of 2016, a professional GPR firm conducted a second, more extensive scan of the site. The result and report from this scan is still pending. The analysis is complicated due to a number of factors that has to do with GPR settings for best possible data collection. I also have instructions from the Nova Scotia Communities, Culture and Heritage to keep results confidential until a decision has been taken on how the province will react on a report showing interesting results. The 2016 scan was financed by Paul Lappin and Knut Skofteland. I’m very grateful for their contribution to this project."

So, somehow, from these incomplete GPR results, the authors have "proved" that there's an "intact underground facility" or "vault' that contains important things.  Let's get the backhoe!

Anyone who understands GPR is shaking his or her head. As I said in the previous post, GPR data are complicated. The equipment works by pulsing radar waves into the ground and detecting the reflections that occur when the waves encounter a material with different electromagnetic properties. Depth can be estimated based on analyzing the two-way travel times of the reflected waves. That's it. Anomalies in GPR data can be caused by any contrast in the electromagnetic properties of the materials that the waves are passing through: open spaces (such as rooms or caves) can cause anomalies, as can buried rocks, changes in sediment, the water table, and numerous other things. Often in a natural setting (i.e., when you're not looking for something really obvious like buried storage tanks) you can't really tell what's "anomalous" until you get data from a large enough area to understand something about what you're looking at.  

So . . . yeah, like the Zarahemla example, I'll go on record with the position that what you think the GPR is telling you is not what it's actually telling you. 

I think these two examples are part of a trend of the fringe embracing new technologies that they think will provide "out-of-the-box" credibility to their ideas and conclusions. In some cases, the abilities of these technologies are probably being intentionally misrepresented to wishful thinkers. In others, it's apparent that the people using these gee whiz technologies don't really understand them. The screen on a GPR doesn't beep at you and say "alert! buried vault!" The XRF meter doesn't have a "detect Roman brass" setting. And tiny flashlights don't have "old" and "not old" icons to discriminate ancient from modern stone inscriptions.  You might as well be using dowsing rods and flipping coins. 

Try learning something about the tools you're using and then collecting and presenting data in a way that they can be evaluated. Then maybe someone would take you seriously.

It's fairly clear that it was white America's enthusiasm for Trump that put him into office. His supporters included significant majorities of whites in general (58%), white men (63%), white women (53%), and whites without college degrees (67%).  Whites with college degrees were split, with 54% of males and 45% of females voting for Trump. While certainly not all of  Trump's supporters are white supremacists, it is undeniable that he certainly drew strong majority support from the angry white racists in this country (and they weren't shy in their support, as this video taken right here in Columbia illustrates). My gut feeling is that, when all the data are on the table, the wave of support that put Trump over the top in so many areas of the country will be linked to highly motivated, white, rural voters who believe that Trump thinks like they think and feel what they feel. ​​Those aren't quite the same words I used last night as I watched the returns come in.

I teach at a major university in the state where the Civil War began. I teach a mostly white undergraduate student body (African American enrollment at USC Columbia is about 10%, significantly lower than percentage of the population in the state). That's my audience. My goal is not to get my students to think what I think, but to help them develop the tools they need to understand the realities of a complex world, to understand why our interpretations of the past are relevant to societies today, and to be able to independently discern when they are being fed a load of baloney.

Jason Colavito's post this morning discussed the parallels between "fringe" history and the growth of the culture that elected Donald Trump. He's right, and there are an amazing number of deep and disturbing parallels. My wife could attest to the number of times I said "I've seen this before" while watching Donald Trump spin a lie, dodge a question, or double down on the conspiracy card. The levels of conspiratorial thinking that blanket "fringe" history are startling similar to those that are present when you delve into the thoughts of some Trump supporters. It's frightening.

And it's not something we can just responsibly choose to not talk about because it's not pleasant. Race still matters in this county. The sources of ideas still matter in this country. Agreeing to attempt to understand and live in a reality together still matter in this country.

Dr. Henrik Williams, a world-renowned runologist, joined my Forbidden Archaeology class this morning via Skype to talk about the Kensington Rune Stone. After what happened last night, it seemed strange to be discussing the details of a rock with some carvings on it -- most people in the world have probably never heard of it and only a very few of those who have probably really care if it's an authentic medieval artifact or not. So why are we talking about it? For the students, it's not a conclusion about the rock that's important (nothing changes for them tomorrow whether or not the Kensington Rune Stone is real or fake) but understanding the process of how you determine whether something is real or fake. I think that's a skill set that was severely underemployed during this last election cycle.

As educators, we need to fight harder than ever to give students the knowledge, confidence, and skills they need to seek, produce, and insist upon maintaining a world with some objective realities.

We have the ability to be constructive and not just angry. To quote Tim Kaine quoting William Faulkner: "they kilt us but they ain't whupped us."

And now it's back to work.

As readers of my blog know, I find the topic of "giants" fascinating.  It was a no-brainer to include it as one of the three topical areas to be covered in the inaugural run of Forbidden Archaeology. As I've said before, the main premise of the class is that credible ideas about the human past can withstand scrutiny and challenges, while incorrect ideas can be shown to be incorrect. Forbidden Archaeology is a course in critical thinking, argument, and communication.  How do you know whether a claim about the past is credible or not? My goal is to give the students the confidence, tools, and information they need to understand the history of ideas and critically evaluate claims based on evidence.

Part of the work the students are doing in the course is writing blog posts. The point of the posts is to help students learn to communicate persuasive, insightful, evidence-based arguments through writing. The student blog posts related to "giants" are listed here. I wanted to integrate those posts into a synthesis of what we discussed in the class. 

Our discussion of "giants" began with some background, tracing the origins of western giant mythology through the Bible, Greek and Roman writings, and early European sources. We discussed the somewhat isomorphic narratives found in ancient Near Eastern and Mediterranean writings (e.g., Hesiod's Five Ages of Man, the Old Testament, the Book of Enoch, and The Epic of Gilgamesh), noting the parallels in some ancient notions about a past world populated by giant, quasi-supernatural, human-like beings.  One student wrote about the association between giant mythology and cannibalism (the giants often tend to be cannibals).  

I introduced the idea (following Adrienne Mayor and others) that at least some ideas about giants may have been related to ancient peoples finding a way to accommodate into their worldview the remains of large, extinct animals that they would have no doubt encountered from time to time. It's an easy enough mistake to make, especially for people with no formal training in comparative anatomy confronting the remains of Ice Age megafauna in an era before the concept of extinction took hold. 

That human societies use mythology to make sense of the world around them and to shape their views of themselves is not surprising, of course, and I think we can see this sort of thing play out repeatedly through time with respect to "giants." We discussed how giants played into the mythologies of post-Roman Europe in a number of interesting ways. The Historia Britonnum (a "history" of the indigenous people of Britain written around AD 828), for example, borrowed heavily from Roman and Greek mythology. Europeans continued the tradition of interpreting the bones of extinct megafauna as those of human giants, whether wicked or noble. The stone constructions left by the Romans themselves were later regarded as the work of giants from a past age. Interpreting megalithic constructions as the work of giants is common today, despite plenty of positive evidence that normal-sized people can and do move big rocks.

Science began to chip away at the evidence for giants in the 1700's, marked first perhaps by Hans Sloane's argument that some of the bones identified as those of giants actually belonged to elephants. Pushback came in the form of the famous 1735 "list of giants" by Claude-Nicholas Le Cat. Le Cat's address was reprinted in the Encyclopedia Britannica and hopped across the Atlantic at some point in the late 1700's (the earliest American printing I have found so far in a 1765 Maryland newspaper).  Abridged versions of Le Cat's address were printed time and again in American newspapers from the 1840's until the 1890's as the reporting of giant bones ramped up and reached its peak. 

The decades-long American fad of giant skeleton reports differs from what happened in Europe earlier, and it remains a fascinating subject to try to understand. The "giant phenomenon" occurred in the context of the appearance of new information technologies (i.e., telegraph and rotary printing press), the forced removal of Native Americans from the eastern U.S., and the debate over the "Mound Builders," among other things.  A couple of students wrote about the historic contexts of ideas about a "giant race" that preceded Native Americans: the "white giant" myth of the Comanche didn't hold up to scrutiny, and early excavations of earthen mounds in Wisconsin found no evidence of giants.

Despite the lack of evidence, the "Mound Builder" myth survives in the public imagination. It is used as a hook in a recent travel piece written for a West Virginia newspaper, for example, and the "Adena giant" narrative is still regularly pressed into service.​  Two students looked at specific cases related to claims of "giant" skeletons in North America: one found that a "missing" giant skull from Texas was neither missing nor giant and another fleshed out the case of "giant skeletons" from Branch County, Michigan.
​
The main agendas underlying modern beliefs in giants in the United States are related to two main Christian communities: (1) Young Earth Creationists; and (2) Nephilim enthusiasts. (After teaching this class, I think there is more overlap between these two orientations than I previously recognized). The relationship between Christianity and giants was one of the subjects of an attempted survey about beliefs in giants.

The appeal of giants to the YEC crowd is that the existence of giants would prove evolution to be false and the Bible to be true (that's the rationale, anyway, based on the flawed argument that giants would show that things get smaller over time rather than bigger). The struggle against evolution has compelled Young Earth Creationists to somehow deal with the accumulation of fossil evidence that is consistent with a very long (i.e., six million years) human evolutionary timeline rather than a very short (i.e., six thousand years) Biblical timeline. One student wrote about how creationists have tried to characterize the fragmentary remains of Meganthropus as a giant, and another wrote about the idea that Neanderthals were the Biblical Nephilim. In both of these cases, just as in ancient Britain and the ancient Near East, we see the struggle to somehow reconcile and explain facts of the natural world.

Even after teaching this course, it is still not clear to me exactly what the Nephilim enthusiasts are all about (other than monetizing gullibility).  The Nephilim Whirlpool is an absurd mishmash of giants, religion, mythology, aliens, paranormal, and conspiracy theory that takes Genesis 6.4 as the "Rosetta stone" to understanding the world. One of my goals in talking about it was to illustrate that, in the absence of a mechanism for discriminating between credible and non-credible "evidence," you are compelled to concoct a story that can incorporate, literally, everything. Thus, for example, all of the stories from all mythology, extra-biblical or not, can be accepted literally and scooped up into the Nephilim dragnet.

Another was to show how the absence of evidence (i.e., where are the bones?) is used by Nephilim enthusiasts to support the claim of a "multi-thousand year cover up" rather than the much more parsimonious position that the lack of giant bones suggests a lack of giants.  It's impossible to have a conversation about evidence in that kind of framework.

Although Nephilim theorists exemplify the baloney cannon approach to the human past, they're not alone. Manufactured and misinterpreted "evidence" related to giants is everywhere. One student wrote about Klaus Dona, for example, one wrote about the "giant's armor" at Schloss Ambras, one wrote about the taxidermied giant Kap Dwa, and another wrote about claims connected to the "Balanced Rock" of upstate New York. On the biological side, one student explored claims about Rh negative blood (commonly related to Nephilim heritage) and another asked if there were any known genetic disorders that could have contributed to the often-cited (but never demonstrated) triumvirate of large stature, dental anomalies, and polydactyly. 

When you discard the desire to use evidence to discriminate credible ideas from non-credible ones, you're just throwing it all into a blender and drinking whatever comes out. Is there anything left after we do that to "giants"? In reality, probably not much. That doesn't mean it isn't worth exploring further and still trying to understand why people believe what they believe.  In eastern North America, are you left with anything after you throw out the obvious hoaxes, fabrications, and gross misrepresentations, disregard the "double rows of teeth" mirage, and adjust for some patterned over-estimates of height?  Maybe, and maybe not. Perhaps we're still left with the possibility that relatively tall individuals are over-represented in the earthen mounds of eastern North America. Perhaps the "Adena royalty" hypothesis will still be standing after the dust settles. Or maybe it too, like so many reported "giant" bones, will crumble away when exposed to the air.

We have reached the point in semester where those of us involved in the educational parts of academia -- faculty and students alike -- are starting to feel the strain: you can see it in the body language, the class attendance, and in my Facebook feed peppered with complaints from colleagues about plagiarism and requests for extra credit.

For me, the grind of the "fringe" material we're dealing with in Forbidden Archaeology is contributing to the fatigue. I've been immersed in this stuff since August. The silliness, lies, and willful ignorance are wearing on me.

The feeling of fatigue crystallized as I listened to this presentation by Alex Koritz, a so-called "Heartland Mormon" who believes that events described in the Book of Mormon unfolded in eastern North America. I played a short chunk of the video (from about 9:00-20:00) in class as part of our discussion of claims about the "missing copper" of the Great Lakes, and asked the students to try to identify and evaluate Koritz's claims and figure out his orientation on the fly. I listened to the remainder of Koritz's presentation over the course of a few days during my walks to and from campus. Between what Koritz says and the questions from the audience, it's really a depressing brew of so many of the concepts we've dealt with this semester (claims about giant skeletons, re-dating the Sphinx, "Mound Builders," government and academic conspiracies, misrepresentation of Native American oral traditions, misconceptions about what archaeologists think and do, misuse of genetic data, etc.). It is sad.

One of the most distressing things that I heard from Koritz was that the Heartland Mormons apparently plan to excavate an archaeological site in Iowa. During the question/answer session, Koritz mentions that Wayne May, editor of Ancient American Magazine, is "overseeing" an excavation of a Hopewell site (about 1:12:30):

"Even in the Midwest there are still Hopewell digs going on. We were back in Illinois recently . . . um . . . if you know Wayne May, he's actually overseeing one on the Mississippi River."

What?

Fetishizing fake artifacts and making fantastic maps is one thing, but excavating a site?

[Update (11/13/2016): I think that an excavation has already taken place.]

This webpage, dated January 2015, describes the purchase of property and the intent to excavate a Hopewell site that the Heartland Mormons claim may be the sacred city of Zarahemla:

"For the past several  years Ancient American Magazine publisher Wayne May has been exploring the possibilities of what could be one of the most significant archaeological finds in history, the Zarahemla temple site of the Nephites of the Book of Mormon!  Before this can be positively established, archaeological work must be done to verify that this was anciently a Hopewell Mound Builder Civilization site along with having evidence of a temple structure."

The site shows aerial photographs of the property across the river from Nauvoo, Illinois, where May et al. claim there is evidence of a rectangular "temple structure" and provides a figure that purports to show the locations of buried walls as determined using ground-penetrating radar (GPR):

I can't fully evaluate the GPR work without seeing a formal report, of course, but I can tell you that I'm extremely skeptical of the accuracy of the information in that image. GPR works by pulsing radar waves into the ground and detecting the reflections that occur when the waves encounter a material with different electromagnetic properties. By measuring the strength and travel time of the reflected pulses, it's possible to collect information about subsurface deposits.  But those data are not simple. GPR data do not come in maps such as those shown above: such maps are produced from careful processing and analysis of dense datasets. GPR cannot, by itself, tell you the kinds of materials that are buried or give you precise depths. The resolution of GPR varies with antenna size -- the greater depth penetration required, the lower the frequency of antenna that must be used and the lower resolution that you'll receive. I don't know what kind of hardware, software, and methods were used to produce this illustration of a buried rectangular structure, but I will tell you that GPR did not identify the material as wood and did not provide those direct depth figures.  

Who produced this drawing?  The website address on the image is not functional. I found a single page for a company called H3 Tec here. There is additional information about H3 Tec's claim of a technology for long-range detection of precious metals scattered around the web (e.g., here, here).

Shooting radar waves into the ground and drawing maps are non-invasive activities: you can do that all you want without permanently affecting the archaeology. But apparently this GPR study is just a prelude to an actual excavation. The webpage says the following:

"I would like to invite you to join with other fellow "Heartlanders" to help us raise the funds for the purpose of conducting the archaeological studies and dig.  The dig will be conducted by non-Mormon semi-retired archaeologist, Dr. John Melancon, who is also one of the few American archaeologists fully certified to conduct digs in Israel because of his training in Hebrew archaeology."    

So who is this famous archaeologist who, with your generous support and Wayne May's guidance, is going to uncover the temple at Zarahemla?

Melancon apparently runs a company called Underground Discovery & Exploration. From that website, we learn that: 

"Dr. John Melancon is a world renown archaeologist that maintains a semiprivate museum in HENDERSON TX. Dr. John Melancon is notably the worlds foremost authority on Spanish and Knights of the Golden Circle Society treasure maps, symbols and signs.

As an archaeologist, Dr. John Melancon desires to preserve the integrity of history. Treasure hunters seek out the knowledge Dr. Melancon has amassed over the past 35 years of the secret Civil War society, KGC."

As you can see from the screenshot, the posts on the Underground Discovery & Exploration website are not about archaeology. The focus is on treasure hunting.

I was unable to find much about actual archaeology that Melancon has done. I found several announcements for presentations he has given to church groups (e.g., this one, this one, and this one). He has a listing on "Worldwide Who's Who," an "international branding and networking organization" that charges membership fees. I did find several others things of interest, however, including this 2013 newspaper story about a treasure-hunting controversy in New Mexico involving Melancon.  He apparently started and ended this blog with a single post in 2014. His LinkedIn page states that he has been Senior Vice President of a Bible museum in Branson, Missouri, since 2015, with responsibilities that include:

"Curating and displaying artifacts, procurement of artifacts, archaeology overseas and in America. Translation of some inscriptions and oversight of the archaeological portion of the museum. Assisting in operation of the balance of the the museum."

[Update (3/14/2017): Dr. Bobby Sparks, President of the Bible History Museum in Branson, Missouri, informed me via a comment below that Melancron "was associated with the project early on, but due to circumstances, he is no longer identified with the project"].

This page from 2011 crows about the treasure hunting expedition that Melancon will be leading to Black Mesa (perhaps the same one later described in the newspaper article above?). The language will sound hauntingly familiar to those of you who have followed this blog closely: 

"As one well known treasure hunter said, “How did you get permission on one of the biggest treasure sights in the world?” Simple. We are Expedition Resources: an unbeatable team, experience, technology, and a solid track record. What are you waiting for? Call us today to be a part of the greatest team, greatest treasure hunt, and greatest expedition! MAKE HISTORY!!!"

That's a bold statement. Can Melancon claim an A-Team van and a costume to compete with those fielded by the TreasureForce? 

Whatever kind of van he might have, it's not at all clear to me that Melancon has the expertise to excavate a Middle Woodland site in the Eastern Woodlands. I cannot comment of the actual archaeological excavation he's done before (I would love to see an example), but I will tell you that doing "Hebrew archaeology" in the Middle East is different from doing Hopewell archaeology in the Midwest. The techniques are different, the deposits are different, the cultural materials are different, and the research questions are different.  And once shovels go in the ground, you can't put things back.

So what's the plan here? What's the goal? What's going to happen if human remains are encountered? How are the deposits that are exposed going to be documented? What's going to happen to the cultural materials after they come out of the ground?  Can my archaeological friends in Iowa tell me anything about what's going on?

I'm all for public interest in archaeology, but I'm not for the sacrifice of a legitimate archaeological site for the purposes of fantasy.