I wanted to take a moment and inform the Ancient Artifact Preservation Society (AAPS) that it seems to have forgotten to include Frank Joseph (formerly Frank Collin, founder of the National Socialist Party of America) in the video promotion it produced for its upcoming "Conference on Ancient America."  While Joseph is on the poster for the event, his presentation (unlike the other thirteen on the program) wasn't included in the video.  Surely it's just an oversight, as Joseph is a well-known figure in the "fringe" history world.

Or maybe it wasn't an accident.

Both the AAPS and Ancient American Magazine (a co-host of the event) embrace hyperdiffusionism, arguing that similarities in cultural attributes (such as technology, architecture, religion, etc.) are attributable to "diffusion" from one culture to another: similarity indicates a common source. Embedded within hyperdiffusionism is the assumption that ideas and traits diffuse outward from "higher" cultures to "lower" ones.  

The idea that societies and "civilizations" can be progressively ranked on some scale of achievement (and the technological differences between those societies are the result of inherent biological constraints) was relegated to the garbage can of bad ideas by early twentieth century scientific anthropologists. It got tossed out not because it was politically incorrect, but because it was factually wrong. The notion of "progressive social evolution," used by European colonial powers to justify the subjugation of indigenous peoples around the world, unfortunately, didn't die off completely.  The German Nazis embraced it along with hyperdiffusionism as part of their program to use prehistory to support their racist and expansionist agenda and propaganda (see this 1990 paper by Bettina Arnold). Hyperdiffusionism remains alive today, not-so-subtly submerged in all kinds of nonsense claims about Atlantis, white gods, a "megalithic culture," etc. Not surprisingly, in most cases it is "white" cultures that are put forward as "higher."

The AAPS video pitch includes, among other things, an offer of free conference registration for "active students and teachers."  In typical Xplrr fashion, they also throw in typos for no additional charge:

"History Hunters From Around The Globe Meet In Michigan. THIS IS BIG and IF YOU want the TRUTH about HITORY then this is the place to be."

What kind of "truth" are they peddling? I'm not familiar with the work and ideas of many of the people speaking at the AAPS conference, but I would be very surprised if classic hyperdiffusionism isn't an important component of many of the presentations. That's what makes it interesting that the one presenter of the bunch who has actual, high level ties to organized Nazism is absent from the AAPS video. Where is Frank Joseph?

As I've written before, belief systems matter when you're operating outside of a scientific framework.  When ideas and evidence are not subject to attempts to falsify, when you think you already know what the answer is and you're content to pick pieces that seem to help you complete the puzzle, you're not doing science. And you're not going to be producing any "truth" that will withstand scrutiny. In that case, what you believe is very important to the story you're telling. 

If I was a high school teacher trying to get my students interested in ancient history . . . I wouldn't touch this thing with a ten foot pole. Imagine trying to explain to the principal why you encouraged your students to go listen to the founder of the American Nazi Party talk about his interpretations of prehistory. What a nightmare. Maybe that's why Joseph isn't in the video.

I'm still catching up on a backlog of blog-related emails and comments that accumulated during those heady weeks of #Swordgate. I've never been great at promptly returning emails, and going to the mattresses for Swordgate made the problem worse. I apologize if I haven't gotten back to you yet. I hope to answer everything eventually.

Almost a year ago, I wrote this post about some purportedly late radiocarbon dates for mastodons and mammoths that are being used as "evidence" for the accuracy of the Book of Mormon (BOM). The BOM (Ether:16-19) describes elephants in the New World at what would have been about 2500 BC.  The current scientific consensus, however, is that mastodons and mammoths did not survive in the Eastern Woodlands past about 9500 BC. While Mormon scholars continue to cling to a small suite of Holocene radiocarbon dates to argue for much later survivals, it's pretty clear that those anomalously young dates are probably attributable to either contamination, context/association problems, or both. I provided a table of five radiocarbon dates that seem to be embraced by Mormons not because they are good science, but because they remain the "best fit" to the Jaredite time period.  No-one else takes those dates seriously.  They're probably mistakes. 

When I wrote the original post, I was unable to track down the primary sources for the Devil's Den mastodon. Dr. Eric Butler, a biologist at Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina, kindly found a copy of Martin and Webb's (1974) report and took a look at it. He provided a synopsis in a recent email.  I'll summarize two main points:

Mastodon Remains.  In a long list of fauna from Devil's Den, there is a single entry for Proboscideans: "2 vertebrae, a last cervical vertebrae and an anterior thoracic" from juvenile mastodons.

​Dating and Associations. The age estimate of 7000-8000 BP pertains to an entire fossil assemblage, not just the mastodon remains. While it is not exactly clear how this age estimate was produced (this description sources an unpublished research paper by H. K. Brooks that purportedly references radiocarbon dates, but no specifics are provided), it seems that the young age is not generally accepted by paleontologists in Florida and elsewhere. An age of 7000-8000 BP for the entire Devil's Den assemblage would mean that horses (Equus), saber-toothed cats (Smilodon), giant ground sloths (Megalonyx), Florida spectacled bears (Tremarctos floridanus), and dire wolves (Canis dirus) were running around in Florida at about 6700-5700 BC. There is no other evidence, at archaeological sites or elsewhere, for those species surviving into the Middle Archaic period in Florida or anywhere else.

The long and short of it is that it appears there's good reason to view the late dates of Devil's Den fossil assemblage with significant skepticism.  If it's good evidence for a late survival of mastodon, it's good evidence for a late survival of an entire "Pleistocene" fauna that has no precedent elsewhere.  A simpler explanation is that the age estimate for the assemblage is not accurate. As Butler suggested in his email to me, this assemblage would seem to be a prime candidate for re-dating using modern AMS methods. I wrote the following in my original post:

That offer still stands. If you're serious about resolving the issue of late-surviving Proboscideans, let's make it happen and re-date this material using modern methods and standards.

One final note to show you how these things fit together: Dr. John Sorenson, an advocate of late mammoth/mastodon survivals and one of the primary defenders of the historicity of the BOM, is a prominent advocate for pre-Columbian transoceanic contact in the Ancient Artifact Preservation Society, the hyperdiffusionist organization backing the "100 percent confirmed Roman sword from Nova Scotia" that turned out to be a piece of modern brass tourist kitsch.  Maybe we should do a blood residue analysis on the sword and see if it was used to kill mastodons. Finally . . . it all makes sense!