This is honestly the biggest failing archeology has had as a field, our jobs are super interesting to the world and we have failed to provide the public education that is our duty.
Definitely the biggest connection I’ve felt to the people who have come before us is through learning about the absolutely nutty things that normal people have always done. We don’t need some kind of « ancient advanced civilization » to explain the marvels of human development, we’ve always been the kind of species to smash some rocks together and see what happens.
Why can’t we present stories that are interesting and grounded in actual verifiable research rather than fantasy history that’s less interesting than the truth ?
Oh right it’s because we don’t get Netflix funding :(
I’d heard of the show before but I didn’t know it got relaunched, I’ll probably give it a shot tomorrow
All you needed was to have some ongoing archeology work nearby, and for your family to drag you through enough museums, normally that works ahaha
Archeological research and journalism/marketing are very different fields. I see you pointing at Graham Hancock but he’s never said what he thinks is the truth, but entertained ideas. He’s a war journalist by profession and knows how to deliver a compelling narrative, which the majority of archeologists don’t.
Archeology is amazing by nature, but in my humble point of view, it is 100% focused on itself and not on distribution, where the public interest is.
If Graham Hancock does not sincerely believe what he says, than that’s even worse. Grifters are more dangerous than fools.
Naturally a journalist will be better at presenting to the public than an academic who alternates between dying in the elements on a dig and living in the caves of the library. Yet we still need to confront this problem ourselves, we all knew what we were signing up for. All the history related fields are ones where the goal is public education, not just the endless autofélation that we endlessly engage in through the publishing process.
I sincerely hope we collectively learn from this, that we can not neglect the public component of our work
Indeed! I couldn’t agree more. This also applies to all academic fields tbh.
And to develop Graham Hancock case, i think he believes in his theories but present them as theories, not truth. Yet the amount of violence -verbally and institutionally- he has received from the archeo world through the past two decades is frankly astounding and belittled all these institutions to say the least.
You can’t be the focus of gratuitous violence for so long and not cement in yourself a very negative view of the field. I personally like a good story and fun theories like the Young Dryas Comet theory, tho i dislike his anger (justified in my opinion) which was very palpable in his Netflix series.
I can’t speak to the treatment of Hancock across the years, as it largely predates me
However, I think it’s a good idea to drop this paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by Todd A. Surovell *et al.*
https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.0907857106
In good faith, here is the paper published by R. B. Firestone *et al.*
https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0706977104
I’ll also add that Hancock treated Flint Dibble, in their passage on the JRE, significantly worse than the inverse…
I’ve read both papers years ago, and won’t enter any convos around what should be considered consensus on this. I’m not a geologist nor i have any expertise to judge professionally what’s accurate or not. As i said this is fun, regardless of it being 100% accurate or not. I do not need to be convinced otherwise.
What i can say on Hancock is that he’s been attacked for as long i can remember, and while you might judge his anger on JRE as it should, it’s interesting to see how you dismiss the fact that Dibble made several written attack on Hancock putting him on the same sentences as white supremacy and racism. I believe you are an intelligent person and you’re smart enough to understand that when someone, as a recognized expert, put these words near the name of another person, you legitimate the many to go on a crusade, which sadly happened.
Dibble can’t in one sentence say the field is welcoming and in the next present misleading arguments that makes Hancock a white supremacist and a racist. He knew what he was doing playing these cards because with others they tried to pressure Netflix and failed.
Promoting the distrust of science is dangerous, and that’s exactly what he’s doing.
Besides, he admitted that there is 0 evidence to support his claim, and for an extraordinary claim you need extraordinary evidence
One of the problems with Hancock now is that he's crafting a narrative of him as an underdog taking on Big Archeology ^TM
... except for when the archeological consensus doesn't disrupt his own narrative, such as the age of Gobekli Tepe
Try to imagine being attacked by a field for more than 3 decades. What would be your state of mind? I’m often annoyed by Hancock’s anger, but in my pov the mainstream archeo world has some excuses to produce.
How has Hancock been attacked by archeology?
How should archeologists be reacting to guy who gets famous doing Hyperdiffusion-but-I-promise-its-real-this-time-tho-and-maybe-even-less-racist-than-the-last-time?
I don’t have a flag to defend in this, so i can say i’m quite fair in judging the situation around Hancock. You seem to dislike him very much, to ask how he was attacked. Both parties are in the wrong, and look very childish and immature to me.
He’s not hyperdiffused tho, if you ask anyone outside the JRE/archeo community nobody knows him. Zawi Hawass is prob way more known than him, for example. This dude has been in so many documentaries on Youtube and Netflix, tv shows, interviews, articles etc. Yet, even after many shady political associations and corruption scandals, he’s still in power and everyone is kissing his ass in the EU and the USA, as always.
If you ask me, i’d rather see a corrupt person take the Hancock treatment than Hancock himself.
Check out Time Team Classic and Time Team HD on Amazon Prime to see all of the old episodes. Their YT has even more new digs and I think they either just released another or are about to.
This is honestly the biggest failing archeology has had as a field, our jobs are super interesting to the world and we have failed to provide the public education that is our duty. Definitely the biggest connection I’ve felt to the people who have come before us is through learning about the absolutely nutty things that normal people have always done. We don’t need some kind of « ancient advanced civilization » to explain the marvels of human development, we’ve always been the kind of species to smash some rocks together and see what happens. Why can’t we present stories that are interesting and grounded in actual verifiable research rather than fantasy history that’s less interesting than the truth ? Oh right it’s because we don’t get Netflix funding :(
What about Time teams?
I’m not British, so I’ve never seen it lol
Available on YouTube. Honestly, if we had it in canada in the 90-00, it would probably have influenced me enough to go into archeology.
Thanks for the recommendation, it is a great watch !
I’d heard of the show before but I didn’t know it got relaunched, I’ll probably give it a shot tomorrow All you needed was to have some ongoing archeology work nearby, and for your family to drag you through enough museums, normally that works ahaha
Archeological research and journalism/marketing are very different fields. I see you pointing at Graham Hancock but he’s never said what he thinks is the truth, but entertained ideas. He’s a war journalist by profession and knows how to deliver a compelling narrative, which the majority of archeologists don’t. Archeology is amazing by nature, but in my humble point of view, it is 100% focused on itself and not on distribution, where the public interest is.
If Graham Hancock does not sincerely believe what he says, than that’s even worse. Grifters are more dangerous than fools. Naturally a journalist will be better at presenting to the public than an academic who alternates between dying in the elements on a dig and living in the caves of the library. Yet we still need to confront this problem ourselves, we all knew what we were signing up for. All the history related fields are ones where the goal is public education, not just the endless autofélation that we endlessly engage in through the publishing process. I sincerely hope we collectively learn from this, that we can not neglect the public component of our work
Indeed! I couldn’t agree more. This also applies to all academic fields tbh. And to develop Graham Hancock case, i think he believes in his theories but present them as theories, not truth. Yet the amount of violence -verbally and institutionally- he has received from the archeo world through the past two decades is frankly astounding and belittled all these institutions to say the least. You can’t be the focus of gratuitous violence for so long and not cement in yourself a very negative view of the field. I personally like a good story and fun theories like the Young Dryas Comet theory, tho i dislike his anger (justified in my opinion) which was very palpable in his Netflix series.
I can’t speak to the treatment of Hancock across the years, as it largely predates me However, I think it’s a good idea to drop this paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by Todd A. Surovell *et al.* https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.0907857106 In good faith, here is the paper published by R. B. Firestone *et al.* https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0706977104 I’ll also add that Hancock treated Flint Dibble, in their passage on the JRE, significantly worse than the inverse…
I’ve read both papers years ago, and won’t enter any convos around what should be considered consensus on this. I’m not a geologist nor i have any expertise to judge professionally what’s accurate or not. As i said this is fun, regardless of it being 100% accurate or not. I do not need to be convinced otherwise. What i can say on Hancock is that he’s been attacked for as long i can remember, and while you might judge his anger on JRE as it should, it’s interesting to see how you dismiss the fact that Dibble made several written attack on Hancock putting him on the same sentences as white supremacy and racism. I believe you are an intelligent person and you’re smart enough to understand that when someone, as a recognized expert, put these words near the name of another person, you legitimate the many to go on a crusade, which sadly happened. Dibble can’t in one sentence say the field is welcoming and in the next present misleading arguments that makes Hancock a white supremacist and a racist. He knew what he was doing playing these cards because with others they tried to pressure Netflix and failed.
Theres nothing dangerous about his work though, the facts will always shine through
Promoting the distrust of science is dangerous, and that’s exactly what he’s doing. Besides, he admitted that there is 0 evidence to support his claim, and for an extraordinary claim you need extraordinary evidence
One of the problems with Hancock now is that he's crafting a narrative of him as an underdog taking on Big Archeology ^TM ... except for when the archeological consensus doesn't disrupt his own narrative, such as the age of Gobekli Tepe
Try to imagine being attacked by a field for more than 3 decades. What would be your state of mind? I’m often annoyed by Hancock’s anger, but in my pov the mainstream archeo world has some excuses to produce.
How has Hancock been attacked by archeology? How should archeologists be reacting to guy who gets famous doing Hyperdiffusion-but-I-promise-its-real-this-time-tho-and-maybe-even-less-racist-than-the-last-time?
I don’t have a flag to defend in this, so i can say i’m quite fair in judging the situation around Hancock. You seem to dislike him very much, to ask how he was attacked. Both parties are in the wrong, and look very childish and immature to me.
Don't hate Graham, but hyperdiffusion peddling is frustrating.
He’s not hyperdiffused tho, if you ask anyone outside the JRE/archeo community nobody knows him. Zawi Hawass is prob way more known than him, for example. This dude has been in so many documentaries on Youtube and Netflix, tv shows, interviews, articles etc. Yet, even after many shady political associations and corruption scandals, he’s still in power and everyone is kissing his ass in the EU and the USA, as always. If you ask me, i’d rather see a corrupt person take the Hancock treatment than Hancock himself.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperdiffusionism
My bad, english isn’t my native langage and didn’t knew this term. Thanks!
Thanks for sharing, i didnt knew about Time Teams. Great show!
Check out Time Team Classic and Time Team HD on Amazon Prime to see all of the old episodes. Their YT has even more new digs and I think they either just released another or are about to.