The recent events in Charlottesville have amplified the dialogue about the resurgent boldness of white supremacists in this country. Condemnation of what unfolded there -- including the murder of a woman protesting against the "Unite the Right" rally -- was generally swift and strong. A notable exception, of course, was the milquetoast reaction of President Trump. He shot an air ball on the political equivalent of a layup. It's part of a pattern of top-down weakness on this issue.

Charlottesville has catalyzed a conversation that we need to have in this country. White supremacism is a scourge that's been present since before our country was founded. It's a chronic illness. While the problem isn't new, however, one could argue (persuasively, I think) that what's happening now has new elements that need to be discussed and factored into strategies for dealing with the problem. Social media is one. The current political climate is another.

It's a relatively simple thing to express disgust and outrage at the ideas, goals, and behaviors of white supremacists. I've seen it all over Facebook and Twitter, as well as in statements by officials at all levels of government. Some of the archaeologists I know have latched onto various memes showing Indiana Jones punching a Nazi.  We are forever entangled in a love/hate relationship with Indiana Jones (looting graves = bad; punching Nazis = good).

That's all well and good, but we can do much better. Sharing a meme is -- literally -- the least you can do.

I'd like to challenge my friends in academic anthropology, archaeology, and other social sciences and humanities (e.g., sociology, history, psychology, political science, etc.) to integrate discussions of white supremacism into your classrooms. I expressed similar sentiments the day after the election. I have seen nothing in the past six months that has persuaded me that I was wrong.

As an archaeologist, my expertise lies in interpreting the human past through material remains. When evaluating a claim about the past, it is always fair and necessary to ask "how do you know?" Being a good archaeologist means being able to consider multiple explanations and interpretations and generate expectations that can be evaluated based on material evidence. It's a process that can be tedious, complex, sometimes fruitless, and often unsatisfying to those who want quick, easy answers. As disappointing as it may be to those who want archaeologists to be like Indiana Jones, developing and using scientific frameworks to figure out what, why, and how things happened in the human past is central to the project of archaeology. It's how we know what we know.

So what does that have to do with white supremacism?

White supremacist ideology, like many ideologies, is warranted in part by claims about the past. For a taste of what underlies the modern Alt-right's basket of baloney, see this post I wrote in January about Richard Spencer's interview of Kevin MacDonald.  The old-school German Nazis loved Atlantis, as do modern Aryan enthusiasts (like this one and this one). Slavery in the early United States was justified based in part on Samuel Morton's polygenist racial hierarchy, which he constructed using cranial data. Colonialism, empire-building, use of the Mound Builder myth to justify the forced removal of Native American populations . . . the list goes on and on. Claims about the past are entangled with claims about the inherent superiority of white people in all of these cases.

While many of the most racist misuses of archaeology can be traced back to the Victorian era, they aren't ancient history for the white supremacists who inhabit our social, cultural, and political landscape today. As professional archaeologists, we need to understand where those ideas come from, what basis they claim in fact, and why they gained traction. And we need to be able to explain why they are incorrect, not just assert that they're incorrect.  We need to be able to teach others to independently and critically evaluate the claims about the past that are presented to them. I don't have any specific data, but when I look at pictures of the white supremacists in Charlottesville, I see a lot of young faces. Much of the crowd was of college age. That's the age demographic we interact with.  

In my opinion, it's not enough for us as archaeologists and anthropologists to simply repeat the mantra of tolerance. We need to dig in our heels and use our expertise to expose students to the information and processes that give us such confidence that white supremacism has no basis in fact. This is something that all four branches can participate in. Physical anthropology, cultural anthropology, linguistics . . . they're all relevant to the discussion and there's plenty to go around.

This is a four-field problem if ever there was one. I think Franz Boas would agree with me. I understand the visceral reaction of wanting to advertise that you'd like to punch Nazis. I'm asking you to think about your syllabus, also. Can you fit in a discussion of the the early history of physical anthropology? Can you find time to talk about one or two examples of how archaeology is abused for the sake of nationalism?

I'm not sure exactly what Papa Franz would do if he was alive today, but I'm sure he wouldn't have been silent. 

My Forbidden Archaeology class will have its first meeting this Friday morning. As usual, I've waited until almost the last minute to attempt to finalize the syllabus. But that attempt has now been made, and I still have a day to spare. Go me. 

As anyone who has ever created a syllabus from scratch knows, there comes a point when the rubber meets the road and you have to cease thinking vaguely and start nailing down the specifics. I've still got a few more nails to drive in (you'll notice some "TBA's" in the day-by-day readings, and I'm still working on a couple of additions to the guest list), but this is more or less what we'll be driving this semester. Yes, I know I'm mixing metaphors. It's been a long day. One of my kids woke me up at 2:30 and then again at 3:30 and I wasn't able to get back to sleep afterwards. 

I got several offers of guest participation that I won't be able to fully capitalize this time around. If you emailed me about the class and I haven't gotten back to you yet, I sincerely apologize. As I've mentioned before, the students will be writing several blog posts. I hope that several of you that I was not able to include as formal "guests" of the class will perhaps be willing to work with one or more students individually. I'll be in touch!

Finally, I'm sure some of you out there will, for whatever reasons, be unhappy with what the students will be reading. And I'm sure some of you will tell me about it. Keep in mind that I did not chose readings to provide "answers." I chose them to illustrate points, show contrasts, spark questions, and provoke arguments. While we will be discussing and dissecting some of the readings quite closely in class, others are there simply for background. I'll learn a lot about what works well and what doesn't as I get to know the students and we work our way through the course.  

Stay tuned!

I'll break the suspense and answer the question right away with a quote from page five of the latest issue:

"The purpose of Ancient American is to describe the true prehistory of the American continent, regardless of presently fashionable belief systems, and provide a public forum for certified experts and non-professionals alike to freely express their views without fear or favor."

My experience with Ancient American has been limited. My wife bought me an issue about a year and a half ago that had a cover story about a "giant skeleton" from New York (I wrote about it here), and I bought another issue last spring while I was trying to track down the story of the "oxhide ingot" from Michigan. 

I bought the latest issue (111) this morning because it has the "Roman sword" on the cover and an article titled "The Cursed Oak Island Artifacts" by J. Hutton Pulitzer. I skimmed through the article and didn't see anything about the sword. If you can't get enough of Pulitzer's sour grapes "tech-mogul-turned-explorer-turned-warrior-for-truth" puffery, then by all means you should spend your own $4.95 to read about the latitudes and longitudes of where he takes phone calls from important people who think he's awesome. Otherwise, save your money.

As I flipped through the rest of the pdf, I couldn't help but wonder about the audience for this publication. The first "news" piece in this issue ("Traces Of A 9,000-Year-Old Lost Unknown Civilization Discovered in Lake Huron, Michigan") is a word-for-word reprinting of a piece that has been available free online at the Message To Eagle website since August of 2014. Well, it's not quite word-for-word, as the printed copy that was cut-and-pasted into the magazine includes one of the photo captions out-of-place in the text and the phrase "Lake Huron lost civilization" (presumably a page header) inserted into the narrative twice.  My colleagues at Michigan who are doing this work may be surprised to learn that they're uncovering a "lost, unknown civilization" rather than the remains hunting blinds for driving caribou.

Reading on in this issue, you'll find a story about a rock from Michigan that was somehow determined by Wayne May (the publisher) to be an idol of a human head dating to the period 1000 BC - AD 400, Pulitzer's piece, an article about bison that was also reprinted straight from content that's freely accessible online, a review of the almost-forty-year-old Brad Steiger book Worlds Before Our Own by former Nazi Frank Joseph, a misleading article about the Kennewick Man controversy, some advertisements for books . . . finally there are a few pieces which may actually contain some content related to original scholarship.  Since I paid my $4.95, I'll actually read through those and see if there's anything I'm interested in writing about.

Ancient American has been in print since 1993. As far as I can tell, much of the content has been directed at promoting just about anything that fits within a hyper-diffusionist paradigm: everyone, everywhere, all the time. The great irony in how the magazine bills itself (quoted above) is that it's really impossible to both "describe the true prehistory" and allow all ideas equal weight "without fear or favor."  Not all ideas about prehistory can be "true," of course, so how do you separate the credible from the non-credible within some kind of "safe space" where we all pledge not to think critically?  You can't. An unwillingness to try to falsify anything means you have to accept everything and somehow fit it all into a narrative. When you're mired only on the induction side of the inductive-deductive process (trying to concoct a story to explain the "facts" that you've got in front you), you really run into a problem if you have no means or desire to winnow out good pieces of evidence from the garbage (see this post for an expanded discussion).  So paint me a picture of the "true prehistory" of North America that incorporates everyone's bad ideas, misinterpretations, and fraudulent artifacts. I'd like to see that.

The stated purpose of Ancient American makes me wonder if the magazine would be amenable to a Fake Hercules Sword article written by me?  Or perhaps a point-counterpoint where Pulitzer and I can discuss the key issues around the sword(s).  If you really want to get beyond "fashionable belief systems," you might want to try embracing the self-correcting nature of science. It tends to produce some pretty good results if you let it.

And you may also want to invest in some additional proofreading.

I'm about to get on airplane for some holiday travel. I'm hoping to spend much of the coming week not doing much work, but I've been working hard over the last few weeks to finish a "beta" (i.e., mostly complete) version of The Argumentative Archaeologist website. It's done!  Go have a look!  Please spread the word.

I don't have time to write much about it now, so I'm just going to paste in the content from the About page:

The Argumentative Archaeologist is a website that organizes and compiles links to fact-based information and analysis related to fantastic claims about the human past.  While not all "fringe" (i.e., non-mainstream) claims have been shown to be untrue, many have (some of them over, and over, and over again . . .).  The goal of this site is to provide road maps to information that will help you both identify what's BS and understand the history and context of some of the many claims about the past that can be shown to be false.  They can't all be true, right?.

Who Are the Intended Audiences?

This site was conceived and designed with three main audiences in mind:

• The Public. Almost by definition, most "fringe" ideas come from outside the professional archaeological community.  The marketing and selling of those ideas, not surprisingly, are largely targeted to audiences that are also outside of the professional archaeological community ("bypassing the mainstream" is a common part of the pitch). The "fringe" community has done a good job of exploiting traditional print and television media as well as utilizing the internet to uncritically spread sensational claims about the past.  While many of those "fringe" claims can easily be shown to be false, the voices of the few individuals and organizations that have made a concerted effort to address the factual basis of those claims are often drowned out the megaphones that the "fringe" community has built for itself.  This site is an attempt to assemble links to openly available, critical analysis of "fringe" claims into one central location to make it easier for interested members of the public to get the other side of the story. It wasn't aliens - see for yourself!

• Educators. College courses that engage with the history, context, and evidence associated with "fringe" claims about the past are becoming increasingly common. I know several people that teach them, and I myself am planning on teaching one in the Fall Semester of 2016. While traditional textbooks are available that cover many facets of pseudo-archaeology, I feel that much of the real work that is being to address and understand "fringe" claims as they emerge and develop is being done online in formats such as blogs.  Blogs can and have been used to address many different aspects of "fringe" claims with a timeliness and forthrightness that would be impossible in the context of a traditional textbook. I hope that people teaching courses on pseudo-archaeology find this site useful in terms of both the kinds of information it presents and the organization of that information.

• Researchers (Both Kinds). I hope the links compiled on this site will help those of you out there interested in performing research on many different facets of pseudo-archaeology: where do these claims come from? why are they popular? what do we know about artifact x or site y? I know that I have learned several things I did not know just through the process of initial construction of the site (and that is without actually reading in detail the large majority of the content to which this site links). While many claims have been addressed repeatedly and are fairly well understood, many have not and are not. I think it would also be of great benefit to "fringe" researchers to make an effort to understand the arguments against their claims.  I know that may be difficult when you really, really, really want something to be true . . . but if you want your ideas to be taken seriously you will have to someday address an evidence-based critique.  I'm not optimistic that will happen (evaluating the willingness to actually test an idea is one of the key ways to discriminate between archaeology and pseudo-archaeology), but it would be nice. Maybe try not just repeating the same dumb, incorrect thing that someone else already said? Just an idea.​​

How Do You Choose the Content?

The content in this site was not chosen to give "equal time" to skeptical and "fringe" voices.  As mentioned above, the "fringe" side of the equation has developed a powerful set of tools to communicate its various messages: it does not require any assistance.  This site is intended to serve as a counterpoint to "fringe" claims, providing links to critical analyses of components of those claims, links to critical reviews of "fringe" media, and a structure that lets the user explore and understand how various components of "fringe" claims are inter-connected.

During the initial construction of this site (October-November 2015), I mined the blogs of several of the major skeptical online voices of which I am aware: Jason Colavito, ArchyFantasies, Bad Archaeology, Glen Kuban, Skeptoid, Le Site d'Irna, Michael Heiser, Ancient Aliens Debunked, Hot Cup of Joe, and my own website (Andy White Anthropology). This site does not link to all posts on those websites, of course, but it links to many that are related to the topics of interest here. My plan is to monitor those sites and add links to new posts (and new topics) as they become available. I would love to hear about articles, posts, and other skeptical sites of which I am unaware (please use the Suggestion Box).​

Why Do You Present the Content the Way You Do?

The work of critically evaluating "fringe" claims about the human past is being done by very few individuals.  I hope that this site brings attention (and web traffic) to their efforts.  My guess is that most of us who take the time to investigate and write something about the nonsense that's being sold as knowledge aren't making any money by doing so (in stark contrast to the "fringe" side, which has a large commercial component). Credit should go where credit is due: write an email and thank your favorite skeptic for his or her hard work.

I have used block quotes to introduce many of the topics, artifacts, and sites for which I have created entries. Many of those quotes are from Wikipedia.  I chose to do this not because it is the best source of information, but because it probably reflects a reasonable consensus view.  And it's designed to be "open."  I've attributed the textual quotes that I use, and I've attributed the sources of images that I use by linking to my sources.  I have added internal links (i.e., links pointing to other pages within this website) and indicated those changes with the designation [links added]. I do not believe that I am violating any copyrights or other prohibitions by presenting the material the way I do. If you disagree, please let me know via email ([email protected]).​

What Do I Do Now?

Begin your search for information by Topic, by Person, by Geographical Area, by Title of a book, film, or television program, by Meme or Image, or Alphabetically. ​Please use the Suggestion Box to offer topics or links to information, and please sign the Guestbook.

​Enjoy! 

Frank Joseph, author of The Lost Colonies of Ancient America and an affiliate of Ancient American magazine, was born as Francis Joseph Collin. Collin founded the National Socialist Party of America in 1970, an organization perhaps most famous for its involvement in a Supreme Court case over the right to march in the majority Jewish community of Skokie, Illinois (and being subsequently spoofed in The Blues Brothers movie). Collin later went to prison for having sex with minors, was released in the mid-1980s, changed his name to Frank Joseph, and began writing books about various Old World peoples visiting the Americas before Columbus.

I didn't uncover any of this information myself.  The basic outline of the Frank Collin/Joseph story can be found in many places online, including on Wikipedia, in this piece by R. D. Flavin, and in this post by Jason Colavito. 

I'm bringing it up because I think Frank Joseph's Nazi past is relevant to his writings about ancient North America.

Joseph's (2014) book The Lost Colonies of Ancient America was reviewed by Larry Zimmerman in a recent section of American Antiquity (2015, Vol. 80:615-629) devoted to addressing popular works of pseudoarchaeology.  Zimmerman writes that Joseph

"assures readers, of course, [that unlike academic archaeology] his book has no such preconceived notions and allows for available evidence to lead where it will."

Brad Lepper wrote a short piece about Zimmerman's review for yesterday's Columbus Dispatch, highlighting Josephs' mischaracterization of how archaeologists evaluate evidence as well as the racism that underlies the nineteenth century "Moundbuilder" myth that remains important to the claims of American hyperdiffusionists today.

Neither Zimmerman nor Lepper mentioned Joseph's past as one of America's leading Nazis.  It may be that the pages of American Antiquity and the Columbus Dispatch aren't really the place to bring it up, and that's fine.  But I think it's an important part of the story and I'm not under any editorial constraints, so I'm bringing it up: Joseph's Nazi past is relevant to understanding his ideas about pre-Columbian transoceanic contacts.  I'll briefly explain why.

Lepper is correct when he writes that

"Opinions, mainstream or otherwise, don’t count for much in science. Evidence is what’s important."

It is for that very reason that I'm bringing "fringe" theorists into the class I'm planning for next fall. Ideas can come from wherever they come from, but in a scientific framework it is evidence that lets us determine whether those ideas can withstand scrutiny.  Ideas can be tested and refined through evidence-based falsification, allowing us to build an understanding in which we can have some confidence.  That's how it works.

I've found that many "fringe" writers operating outside of a scientific framework (i.e., where ideas are not subject to testing) tend to use evidence differently, often marshaling only those pieces that seem to fit into the puzzle they're imagining themselves putting together.  They think they already know what the answer is and are focused on presenting the evidence that supports that answer. Contrary bits and pieces that are inconvenient to the narrative they're assembling are ignored.  This is not generally going to produce a story about the past that is credible.

Evidence matters, but so does how you use it.  When there's no mechanism for testing an idea, the origin of the idea becomes more important because it guides what evidence you choose to include.

According to Jason Colavito's post about Joseph, Joseph's defenders claim that there is no connection between the man's Nazi past and his current assertions about the roles of Old World peoples in New World prehistory.  Really?  If you understand the history of the "Moundbuilder" myth, you may legitimately ask why some "fringe" authors are so reluctant to let it go.  Systematic, evidence-based inquiry (i.e., actual archaeology) long ago proved to most people's satisfaction that the "Moundbuilder" idea was not correct, no matter what contributed to its origin or popularity.  I can tell you that those that are still holding on to fantasies about some lost white race of "Moundbuilders" aren't arriving at that point through a careful consideration of the evidence. 

I have not read any of Joseph's books.  Based on Zimmerman's review, I doubt I will find much of interest in them.  If I ever do read The Lost Colonies of Ancient America, however, I'll do it with Joseph's Nazi past in mind.  That past is relevant to understanding what "evidence" he chooses to accept and present, and what evidence he chooses to ignore. 

In cases like this, where evidence is chosen to support rather than test an idea, the source of the idea does indeed matter.