Many of the readers of this blog are no doubt aware of the debacle that unfolded on Jason Colavito's blog regarding the plans of Scott Wolter and Hutton Pulitzer to investigate a site that they claim contains the remains of giant humans. I recommend reading through Colavito's post and the comments (388 as of this writing, a large number of which are by Pulitzer) for the background and some insight into how the Wolter-Pulitzer show handles criticism. I'm not qualified to speculate on what might be underlying Pulitzer's inconsistencies, insults, incoherence, puffery, threats, and evasiveness, but I'm pretty sure it's not an over-abundance of professionalism and competence. It's a bizarre display, to say the least.

Generally, I'm not of the opinion that Pulitzer is worth paying a whole lot of attention to anymore. Any credibility he might have had was flushed away along with the decisive demonstration that his "100 percent confirmed Roman sword," which he claimed would change the history of the world, was simply a 19th or 20th century piece of tourist junk. He was easily fooled by it and continues to stick with his original claim to this day, despite a mountain of evidence that clearly shows his claim is wrong. His inability to accept (or perhaps even understand) contrary facts is fundamentally incompatible with the most basic tenets of science. I have yet to see any evidence that he even understands what "science" is, let alone that he is capable of practicing it.

Pulitzer's well-established silliness is not what is important to me in this case: it's that his silliness leaves us with a a lack of clarity about what the pair are actually planning on doing. To me the significant issue is what appears to be a plan by the pair to go beyond rhetoric and start messing with the actual archaeological record. Their latest audio discussion of a past episode of America Unearthed, the subject of Colavito's blog post, features them discussing what sounds like an excavation they plan to undertake with the intent of finding and unearthing what they believe to be gigantic human remains but without involving the authorities in the traditional way (listen between about 16:00 and 24:00). Pulitzer and Wolter first discuss an image, sent to them by a third party, of what they have determined to their satisfaction is a very large human bone. They say the following, among other things:

16:30 Pulitzer: "With any researcher or explorer, the only thing that confirms it is when you, yourself, your team, your documentation team can physically take them out of the ground yourself, and can document it themselves. And that's what's been missing is a lot of these have been found by people, but when they feel they're doing the right thing and calling the local authorities and state archaeologist and some of these others get involved, literally everything disappears."

18:15 Wolter: "This is not in your typical situation, where archaeologists have control of the site. There is, this is a site that is completely unknown, it has not been studied in any specific detail. [... ]This opportunity is once in a lifetime, we are going to seize that opportunity."

23:00 Wolter: "Believe me, if that bone turns out to be as big as it was, and the rest of the bones turn out to be as big, if they match this then we'll have something big to report."

The original brouhaha about Colivito's blog post concerned his use of the phrase "announce plans to rob presumed Native American grave" in his headline describing what Wolter and Pulitzer planned to do. Pulitzer accused Colavito of libel for using the term "rob" (which he argued implied a criminal act) and Colavito subsequently changed the language to read "dig up." Objectively, "rob" was a poor choice of word and I think Colavito did the correct thing by making a change. His quick word change amicably resolved the issue and we all rode off on on our rainbow-colored unicorns, satisfied that the world was populated by reasonable people. The end.

Oh no, wait, that didn't happen. My bad.

What did happen was that Pulitzer commented many, many more times after the word change, responding to challenges and questions about their plans by creating the crazy quilt of conflicting questions and explanations which you just have to read for yourself to fully appreciate. Nothing squares with anything else -- it's just a big mess that leaves the impression that there really is no plan. In their audio presentation, Wolter and Pulitzer clearly stated they think they're dealing with giant human remains (or else what would be the point of excavating them?), and I think any reasonable person would conclude, based on what they said, that they intend to dig up those remains. In the audio, they told us that professional archaeologists and "local authorities" are the problem, and they are going to "seize the opportunity" of a situation where they can "physically take [the bones] out of the ground" themselves. In his comments, however, Pulitzer appeared to walk that position backward several steps (albeit in a confusing zig-zag), disingenuously asking many others who commented where they possibly could have gotten the idea that he and Wolter were going to dig up human remains themselves. I'll tell you where: from what you said! I fail to see how a reasonable person would draw any other conclusion from the audio.

But maybe all of us somehow got it wrong? Fine -- then tell us what the plan is. I (and others) repeatedly asked Pulitzer to clarify what exactly he was talking about in terms of what he and Wolter intended to do.  Eventually we got this response:

Pulitzer also stated that the local sheriff indeed had been notified and shown the bone (or the images, it's not clear which):

"Andy, for your information. The photos show what could easily be a human bone, but the size of it caused the local sheriff to poo poo it. Was too big. Thus case closed. Path open, thus why we are bringing in our own research and medical team. Cant force the locals to deal with now can you. All bases covered."

I responded:

"Ah . . . So now we have learned something. You and Wolter satisfied yourselves (based on a photo) that it is a human bone, but the local authorities satisfied themselves that it isn't. Therefore you argue that you have a green light to do whatever you want? Is that accurate? Perhaps if this photo is so convincing you should let the world see it. I would be willing to bet you were not looking at a genuine photo of a giant human bone. You did, after all, identify brass on your "Roman sword" as gold."

And that is where the conversation effectively ended. I am left still not knowing exactly what Pulitzer and Wolter intend to do. The cowboy tone of their audio conversation and Pulitzer's unwillingness to provide a simple answer to the "what exactly are you planning on doing" question is troubling to those of us who care about stewardship of archaeological remains. We don't know where this "site" is, and we haven't been shown the images of the object that Wolter and Pulitzer have decided is a human bone. We do know, however, that they think they are dealing with human remains and they apparently suppose they are working within the letter of the law but somehow in a way that will allow them to act  as "warriors for truth" outside of customary or established procedures. Yes, I'm using the word "act" intentionally. I'm concerned that Wolter and Pulitzer's cavalier conspiracy-theory-laden discussion will encourage others to go out and become "warriors for truth" armed, this time, with shovels to accompany the sense of outraged entitlement that Pulitzer attempts to instill in them.

My bet (and my hope) is that these guys give up on this idea, whatever the hell it actually is, and leave the physical archaeological record to professionals. This is not because we want to suppress the truth about anything, but because doing good archaeology in the field requires a skill set that takes years to develop and hone. It requires much more than TreasureForce costumes and empty rants about "forbidden history." As it turns out, technology patents, lawyers, and authorship of copy-paste treasure hunting books are of little utility when trying to read and interpret subtle variations in sediments and deciding how to pick apart overlapping features so you understand what you're looking at. In short: you guys don't know what you're doing. You can talk all you want, but when it comes to archaeological fieldwork you haven't demonstrated that you're qualified to stick a single shovel in the ground. You may have been on TV, you may have a lot of fancy toys, and you may have an A-Team van and an official Red Ryder, carbine action, two-hundred shot range model air rifle with a compass in the stock, but I'd be willing to bet that you couldn't out-perform a single one of my field school students in your knowledge of basic excavation methods.

Rant all you want about your "Roman swords" and your "fight for truth," but please leave the excavating to those of us who understand where show business stops and scientific work begins. And please leave human remains alone. These are the remains of people, not props to be used to try to build an audience for your tragicomic attempt at "rewriting history."

One simple step here would be to show the photo of the alleged "giant human bone" to someone who is qualified to make a credible, indpendent judgement about whether or not it could be human. You're completely wrong if you think it's always a simple task to determine what's human and what's not --  there are numerous examples of highly educated people making mistakes in the past, and well-meaning people in law enforcement and medicine continue to make mistakes today because they are not trained in comparative anatomy. What you need is someone who understands both human and animal anatomy and is familiar with archaeological materials. I suggest you send the image to me. If I can't figure out what I'm looking at, I'll find someone who can. That's a sincere offer. I'll give you an honest opinion, and I won't publish the image without your permission. If I think what I'm looking at is human, I will advise you to revisit the issue with the local law enforcement officials that you claim to have already dealt with. This is the point at which the responsible thing to do is to check the bravado and offer some transparency.

I have more to say about this, but I'm on the road again and my time is limited. I'll just say that my sincere hope is that what sounds like a "let's go dig something up" plan, in whatever form we're now supposed to think it will be operationalized, is piled on the scrap heap with Pulitzer's other unfulfilled promises (remember the "smoking gun" Minoan artifacts of Tennessee? remember the "Indiana mummy"? remember the "white paper" that was promised in spring 2016?).

Finally, I'd like to close by saying something positive about Scott Wolter. Despite our recent issues connected to his withdraw from participation in my class and my disappointment that Pulitzer is apparently now speaking for Wolter, I continue to believe that Wolter and Pulitzer are fundamentally different. The contrast comes through clearly in the audio conversation that is the subject of this post (the only one of their America Unearthed reviews that I've listened to so far). Wolter is articulate and has a command of the issues that easily exceeds anything I've ever heard from Pulitzer. Their partnership is none of my business, of course, but  I continue to wonder why Wolter would choose to make his equal someone who so clearly is not. I remain puzzled by the mismatch. 

I welcome any comments by Pulitzer or Wolter that will help clarify what is going on here: I'm genuinely unsure. I'll delete any comments that I deem unconstructive. 

I'm going to keep this short, because life is short and I don't see much utility in expending a lot of energy on this issue.

As I wrote yesterday, Scott Wolter communicated to me that he was no longer interested in participating in my upcoming class. He told me in the email that it was because Jason Colavito would also be involved in the class (here is Jason's take). Given that Colavito would be participating at a different time and discussing totally different topics, it seemed like a strange decision to me. For that reason, I chose to let Wolter be the one to explain it if he cared to. It didn't take long for "Hutton Pulitzer" to show up on my blog and demonstrate, again, his aversion to factual accuracy. "Hutton Pulitzer's" comment provided information about Wolter's decision that I did not. So now it's a topic for discussion.

Scott Wolter decided not to participate in the class because Jason Colavito was also participating.

The alert reader will have noticed my use of quotation marks around "Hutton Pulitzer." As several people commented on yesterday's post, the language used by "Hutton Pulitzer" is distinctly un-Pulitzer-like, being largely devoid of typos, lacking the USE OF ALL CAPS, and written in more-or-less readable English. I have no way of knowing for sure, but it is plausible that "Hutton Pulitzer" was actually Scott Wolter in disguise.

Whether or not "Hutton Pulitzer" was Pulitzer himself or Wolter in a Pulitzer mask, my feelings are the same: good riddance. Team XplRr has passed my tolerance threshold for absurdity.

I'm a professor at an R1 university. I have a PhD. I do real archaeology and I teach students how to do real archaeology. The Forbidden Archaeology course is designed as an exercise in evidence-based critical thinking and communication. It exists to demonstrate to students that we have mechanisms for discerning credible from non-credible explanations of the human past. Not all ideas we have and stories we tell about the past can be correct, so how do we figure out which ones we can throw out? As I've written several times, the lack of a falsification mechanism is one of the hallmarks of pseudo-science. Holding ideas up to evidence-based scrutiny is what archaeologists do. If you're not doing that, you're not doing science. Forbidden Archaeology is designed to help students learn how to critically evaluate competing narratives about the past. 

For a class like this to work, there has to be a free flow of ideas and information. Period. The title of the course is tongue-in-cheek:  in my book there really is nothing that is "forbidden." As long as we have some mechanism for measuring the credibility of ideas and evidence, there's no reason to be afraid of examining any claim about the past. When some ideas or pieces of evidence are put "off limits," science begins to break down. It's okay to have vigorous disagreements, but at some level you have to agree on what constitute "facts" and "evidence."  Even in a dojo, where combat arts are learned and exercised, there are rules to be followed. 

When I talked to Wolter earlier this summer, I thought we had a meeting of the minds about the goals of the class and what we'd be doing. My intent was to have Wolter help us have a good, aggressive discussion of the Kensington Rune Stone, an object that remains enigmatic to this day. The students would have prepared themselves for Wolter's visit, and my hope was that they could experience some really interesting firsthand interactions with someone who has spent a lot of time and effort developing and defending his ideas about the stone.

I made it clear to Wolter in our phone call that I had no interest in having Pulitzer involved in any way. In my judgement, Pulitzer's history of misrepresentations and legal threats makes him unsuitable for interactions with my students. Based on my own history of interactions with Pulitzer, that's a pretty easy call to make.  

But it appears now that when you're talking to Wolter you're also talking to Pulitzer (perhaps literally). So there's really no way around it: whether Pulitzer speaks for Wolter or Wolter is pretending to be Pulitzer, it's monkey business that has no place in my classroom.  What's next? Demands to remove all the brown M&M's? No matter how I look at it, I cannot now imagine a good interaction with the Pulitzer-Wolter show. It's pretty weak sauce, and I'm no longer interested. The Wolter visit is off the table. What they decide to do with their partnership is none of my business, and that's the way it's going to stay.

I'm looking at other options for discussing different facets of the KRS. I've heard from several interested people already, and I'm considering several approaches that will let me meet the educational goals of the class. I wish the Wolter scenario would have played out differently, but it's just absurd to me that an invited guest (and/or his uninvited business partner) would attempt to exercise control over my syllabus. I have never misled anyone about the goals and content of this class. Forbidden Archaeology is going to be fun and educational for all involved.  I will work as hard as I can to make that happen. Wolter and Pulitzer won't be a part of that. Moving on.

That's about all I have to say about this situation at the moment. I'll keep you posted as I move forward.

On a different note, I spent my morning working on this sculpture of a crow. I'm posting an "in progress" picture because I think it's looking pretty good so far. I may enter it in the state fair.

Oh wait . . . maybe the crow is related: "Nevermore" . . . (thanks, Hartman Krug).

I'm sorry to announce that Scott Wolter will not be participating in my Forbidden Archaeology (ANT 291) class this fall. In an email exchange, Wolter told me that he has "lost his enthusiasm" for the idea. I don't fully understand his rationale for the decision, so I think the simplest and fairest thing to do is to leave it up to him to discuss his decision if he chooses.

The class will stilll be evaluating evidence and ideas about the Kensington Rune Stone (KRS), and we still be using Wolter's Hooked X book as a jumping off point for discussion (I was required by South Carolina law to choose the books for the course some time ago). My sense is that the KRS remains, over a hundred years since it's discovery, one of the more genuinely enigmatic objects used to support claims of pre-Columbian transoceanic contact. It's worth discussing no matter how we do it, so we're going to discuss it. I'll be thinking about options for bringing in someone else (probably via a remote lecture) to lay out an argument for/against the authenticity of the KRS. If I can get a prominent KRS skeptic to participate, maybe I'll set it up so the students take the position that the KRS is authentic . . . I'll think about it.

As far as the GoFundMe campaign to fund the costs of Wolter's travel, I can either find a way to return that money to the (n=3) donors or I can look into rolling it into the Jim Vieira travel fund. Vieira has agreed to pay for his own travel, but it would still be nice to offset some of the costs associated with getting him down here.

Please let me know if you have suggestions about KRS advocates/skeptics. I'll adjust the syllabus to accommodate whatever position the speaker wants to take. The class is first and foremost an exercise in critical thinking, logic, and the evidence-based methods we can employ to discriminate credible from non-credible statements about the human past.

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!