Back in June, I wrote about a week spent along the Broad River with colleagues from the South Carolina Heritage Trust and some of my own students doing fieldwork associated with a research grant I received from USC. I have finally completed a video showing some of that fieldwork. I plan on doing another one explaining the analysis and results (which will be completed this calendar year or soon after). Enjoy! You may have noticed that I haven't been regularly blogging about the course this year. That's by design. After wearing myself out the first time around in 2016, I decided I would put less effort into intensive public/fringe interaction. I think it has worked out well. I'm enjoying teaching the course much more. There will be still be student writing online to read eventually, and we'll be making videos this year. I'm just not killing myself to invite everyone else into the classroom. On Friday we finished our section on Atlantis in this year's edition of Forbidden Archaeology. We spent most of the class watching and discussing a talk by Graham Hancock titled "Is the House of History Built on Foundations of Sand?" I wanted the students to watch carefully as Hancock made his case, asking them to think about his logic, the structure of the talk, and the evidence he presented to support his claims (many pieces of which they have already been exposed to). I have not paid a whole lot of attention to Hancock in the past. I haven't completely read any of his books, and I think that this was the first time I have ever listened to an entire talk. He spent the first portion of the talk discussing the recent evidence for the hypothesis that an impact by a comet or meteor triggered the Younger Dryas. (The Younger Dryas is an anomalous cold period that occurred about 12,900-11,700 years ago during the transition from glacial to inter-glacial conditions.) He spent the last part of the talk highlighting some purported evidence (e.g., Gobekli Tepe, the Sphinx) supporting the claim that refugees from Atlantis occupied the Near East after fleeing their island's destruction. The linkage that Hancock makes between the hypothesized extra-terrestrial impact that triggered the Younger Dryas and the destruction of Atlantis is, when you listen closely, peculiar. Following a quotation of Plato's description of Atlantis disappearing into the sea "in a single day and night of misfortune," Hancock describes the cataclysmic effects of extra-terrestrial impacts on the earth. He first discusses the idea that a comet wiped out the dinosaurs. He then moves on to the Younger Dryas impact research, repeatedly referring to "the cataclysm" of the impact. So a comet or meteor wiped out at Atlantis? No, the dates are all wrong for that. The Younger Dryas starts at about 12,900 BP (10,950 BC). Believers set the date of the destruction of Atlantis at 11,550 BP (9,600 BC). So, apparently, all the extra-terrestrial fireworks did nothing to the Atlanteans. They prospered for another 1300 years, conquering the world and mining orichalcum while the planet suffered a return to full glacial conditions. After all the attention paid to violent cataclysm, Hancock actually attributes the destruction of Atlantis to sea level rise at the end of the Younger Dryas. Sea levels are lower during glacial periods because more of the Earth's water is tied up in ice sheets. Sea levels rise in inter-glacial periods because more of the Earth's water is in liquid form. As far as the culprit in Atlantis demise at 9,600 BC, Hancock points specifically to "a dramatic pulse of sea level rise" known as Meltwater Pulse 1b. It will probably not surprise you to learn that, although there is debate about the magnitude, timing, and cause of Meltwater Pulse 1b, no scientist thinks it was so sudden or so rapid that it could have swallowed up a continent "in a single day and night of misfortune." Estimates of sea level rise range from about 6 to 28 meters, occurring over a period of several hundred to over a thousand calendar years. At least one study suggests the pulse didn't even start until hundreds of years after the purported submergence of Atlantis. In other words, the events/processes of neither the beginning nor the end of the Younger Dryas appear to be a good fit for the Atlantis story. The hypothesized cataclysmic impact is too early, and the sea level rise is too slow. You can throw all the science in a blender and talk about cataclysms and sea level rise, but there's no science on the Pleistocene/Holocene transition that I know of that is concordant with any aspect of the Atlantis tale.
Regretfully, I have to announce that there will be no Spring 2019 season of the Broad River Archaeological Field School. After raising funds last spring and getting approval to teach the course pending sufficient enrollment, I recently learned that a decision was subsequently made to not even officially offer the course in the spring semester. That decision -- about which I was neither consulted nor informed -- was made way back in June. I only found out about it accidentally late last week when a student asked me why the course wasn't in the catalog. I'll spare you the who/what/why details. It's a frustrating situation.
I'm writing this blog post not to complain, but to inform those of you who have followed our progress over the last couple of years that I won't be going into the field with students again in the spring as I had anticipated. I'm going to reach out to each of the generous individuals that donated to the GoFundMe campaign and offer to refund his or her money. I will gladly hold on to the funds (which I transferred to a private account) if the donors sign off on a change of plans. If I end up retaining any of the money, I'll use it to continue my research program at 38FA608 (and/or some of the other sites that we have now identified nearby) in a modified form. I just won't be able to involve undergraduates to near the same degree as I did with the field school. Anyway . . . stay tuned. I've always been good at scrambling and making the best of the hand I'm dealt. For those of you that enjoyed the weekly videos from last spring's Broad River Archaeological Field School, I wanted to make you aware of this compilation of the entire season into a single 2:16 presentation. It will be a good refresher for me to watch the whole thing, as I'll be spending much of this semester working on analysis and write-up of the data from the first two seasons of work at 38FA608. Enjoy! Here in Columbia, we're currently waiting to see what kind of punch Florence will still be packing when it gets here. We've had plenty of time to prepare (USC and the public schools have been closed since Tuesday), and we certainly won't get the kind of beating that the coast is getting. It does look like what's left of the storm will be coming straight for us, however, probably bringing a lot of rain. We've been under the clouds of Florence's extremities all day, and the wind has been steadily picking up.
City officials say that they're ready this time, and what happened in 2015 won't happen again. I hope that's true. I'm not betting on it, though. We stocked up on water. And bought a generator. We've got food, cash, extra gas, batteries, a sump pump in the basement, and a portable AC unit that we can use to keep a room cool to sleep in if we lose power for a prolonged stretch. Hopefully it will all be unnecessary. Stronger winds and rain from Florence should arrive in Columbia tomorrow morning, with the center of the storm not reaching us until Sunday. Now onto the art news . . . The Race Against the Bear I've been working on a 9-10' bear sculpture since May. I have always intended it as my entry into ArtFields 2019, but I'm not sure I'll get it done in time. The entry deadline is November 5. I'm over the hump, but still have a long way to go. I've made three videos showing my progress so far. You can follow the bear more closely by following my Instagram account.
And the Winner Is . . . Based on participation, my summer selfie contest -- my attempt at art branding -- was a flop. That's the bad news. The good news is that the few entries makes it easier to pick a winner. And the winner is . . . . . . Flavia Lovatelli! I chose a photo of Flavia with "Naked Flank" as the winner. Congratulations, Flavia, you rock! My Fall Commitments are Low
I entered two pieces ("My Father's Hammer" and "Music Box") in the South Carolina State Fair this year. Other than trying to get the bear done to enter in ArtFields, though, I have little else on the horizon. I decided not to enter several local and regional shows and I turned down an offer for a show. I decided in June to take pressure off myself by not committing, and I've stuck to that. I wish I had more time for art than I do, but I'm happy with the pivot I've taken away from promotion and toward trying to find a groove to make what I want to make. Just as I did in 2016, I started off the first day of Forbidden Archaeology with a brief pre-course questionnaire to try to get some insight into the level of familiarity of my students with various relevant television programs and topics. I kept the television programs the same as in 2016, but added/deleted some of the topics to more closely reflect what we'll be talking about this semester. Here are the "familiarity" data for television programs from both today and 2016: As is plain to see, the report from the class of 2018 is pretty similar to the report from the class of 2016. Ancient Aliens has clearly penetrated this demographic to a much greater degree than any of the programs, with over half of the class members (n=19 in attendance) reporting that he/she has watched at least one episode. The majority of the class had not even heard of the other three programs. Two students account for the four "watched it regularly" responses. I also asked about the same four publications as I did in 2016: Chariots of the Gods! (Von Daniken), Fingerprints of the Gods (Hancock), Forbidden Archaeology (Cremo), and Ancient American magazine. Most of the students report never hearing of any of them, and those that have heard of them report that they've never read them. Here are the data from the "circle what you're familiar with" questions: There are a few things of note in the 2018 data. Not surprising is that Atlantis is the clear winner in terms of familiarity: they've all hear of it. In contrast, no-one was familiar with the term "OOPArt," and only one person reported having heard of Lemuria. There is a fair amount of familiarity with terms like "aryans," "Rh factor," and "Mound Builders," which does not surprise me because most of the students are anthropology majors.
I was surprised at the number of affirmative answers for "Nephilim," "elongated skulls," and "Nibiru." It's possible that familiarity with those terms is largely due to Ancient Aliens, as half the class reports seeing the program at least once. I don't think that would explain "Flood geology," however. I'll have to dig deeper on Monday to learn more about the origins of their exposure to these concepts. The first class period of this year's throwdown of Forbidden Archaeology is in about a half hour. I'll write about what I've got in store so far this year soon. I'll also beginning writing more about my ongoing "real" archaeological work, including the trenching work we did in the spring and my plans on various other fronts. It was nice to have an honest break over the summer, and I feel re-charged and ready for a fun semester. I wanted to take a moment to point you in the direction of a short article about the 2018 Broad River Archaeological Field School that appears in the latest edition of Legacy. If you followed the videos, much of what is in the article will be familiar. If not, it's a time-saving summary. I'd also like to take a moment to congratulate Nena Rice upon her retirement. She has worked at SCIAA for over thirty years in numerous capacities, including as editor of Legacy. Thank you, Nena, for all your dedication and hard work!
Summer is winding down and I'll be back in the classroom in just a couple of weeks. This fall, I'm teaching Forbidden Archaeology again. In this second iteration, I'll be making some significant changes from the way I structured the course the first time around. As the rubber begins hitting the road (i.e., it's time to start working on the syllabus) I'm looking for ways to keep the course fresh and interesting for both me and the students. Our topical focus this year will be "Cataclysm and the Lost World." I tried to cover three topical areas the first time around, and it felt like too much. So I decided to go with a single theme this year and use that as a lens to explore the social/political/historical threads that wind through various claims that (1) the cultural/natural world was a qualitatively different place in the ancient past; and (2) that "lost world" world was destroyed through some kind of incredible catastrophe.
As I start to think about what specific claims to focus on, I'm struck (again) by the overall staleness of the fringe world. There's plenty of "new" material out there, but much of it mixes around the same basket of stupid garbage that's been circulating since the mid-1800s. While there is still great value in going through these ideas and understanding (1) where they come from, (2) how they can be shown to be wrong, and (3) why people still cling to them, it would also be nice to explore something that's not essentially a re-casting of Victorian baloney. If you know of anything that really strikes you as a new claim based on new evidence that fits within the theme of the course, please let me know with a comment. My wife thinks that finding a new nemesis would help to energize me. She may be right. It would fun to engage in a focused, prolonged analysis/debate of a specific claim or set of claims that revolve around material evidence. The key term here is "material evidence:" in order to have a meaningful back-and-forth, there has to be some kind of "thing" about which a claim/interpretation is made. One good artifact in archaeological context is all you really need to make a claim that actually has some teeth . . . so what have you got? What's the artifact that should change everything? (Note: discredited Roman sword advocates and rune stone apologists need not apply.) I suspect that elements of my arrival story to the world of "ancient mysteries" will resonate with others in my generation: I watched In Search Of . . . on TV, was fascinated by anything weird in the various Time-Life Books we had at home, and found myself drawn to the small paranormal section in the local library. The "information" was out there, but it was up to me to find it. Commercial media was financially motivated to lend a helping hand. Many of you who, like me, had to actively seek out pseudo-science during your formative years will be surprised to learn that the Miami-Dade County Public Schools (MDCPS) is now apparently spoon-feeding it to high school kids in their classrooms. Here's a screenshot from the African American Voices Lesson Plan: Yeah, so . . . MDCPS has apparently interpreted the Florida state standard of "Recognize significant events, figures, and contributions of Islamic, Meso-American, South American and Sub-Saharan African civilizations" as a hyper-diffusionist's wet dream. If reading through the tortured objectives, activities, and questions in this lesson plan leaves you confused about the focus, I refer you to the suggested readings: Ivan Van Sertima and Gavin Menzies. Pro tip for you MDCPS: add Barry Fell, the Book of Mormon, and some white supremacist crap about Atlanteans to round out this list. Then you'll have a unit really worthy of appropriating Native American cultures. This is one of the four "Higher Order Thinking Questions:" 4. What peoples do the Olmec statue heads most likely represents? How can you tell? MDCPS: leading the nation in meme-based learning? The claim that there was any African "influence" on Olmec society is, as far as I know, not accepted by any actual scholars on Mesoamerican history and culture. In a quick search I could not find any other examples of Florida school curricula that interpreted SS.912.W.3.15 like MDCPS apparently has. It seems that MDCPS is alone in so baldly blending pseudo-scientific claims into its social studies program. It's a shame for many reasons, and I hope someone in a position of authority sees fit to take a look at this. I agree completely that non-European aspects of world history need to be taught far more aggressively. But substituting a focus on European exploration and colonization with a raft of dubious claims about non-European exploration and colonization and casting it as a study of Mesoamerican civilization is absurd. I see nothing in the lesson plan that suggests fringe claims are being critically evaluated on the basis of evidence. Instead it appears that the claims are to be taken at face value and accepted as evidence that the history books are wrong. Sound familiar? You're not doing your students any favors. The History Channel will probably send a gift basket, though. I thank my friend Pablo Benavente for making me aware of this story via the Fraudulent Archaeology Wall of Shame. As I was responding to yet another absurd comment on my review of the terrible book Species With Amnesia, I realized it has been over a month since I have written a blog post. I take that gap as a win for my struggle to take a summer pause from the world of academia, etc. Over the past month and change I have been on a family vacation to Edisto, SC, spent a lot of time with my kids, attended my first Comic Con (Atlanta), gotten a few things done around the house, done some art, and begun the long struggle to regain my proficiency at doing a cannonball off the diving board. I have paid relatively little attention to politics, archaeology, and the pseudo-archaeological fakers clamoring for attention. I am better off for it. I have a list of things to write about when I start sitting down regularly at my computer again in a couple of weeks. I won't list them, because chances are good that I won't actually write about most of them. I did want to take a minute to pass on links to some content related to the artwork I've been doing over the last month. I have completed several small pieces and have several other projects in progress. If you want to see what I'm up to as I'm doing it, I post regularly to my dedicated art page on Facebook and to my art-only Instagram account. Here are some images and videos of some of my recent pieces (images will link to gallery pages on my art website): And now I need to go get the towels and fill up the kids' water bottles.
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All views expressed in my blog posts are my own. The views of those that comment are their own. That's how it works.
I reserve the right to take down comments that I deem to be defamatory or harassing. Andy White
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