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No. He's widely regarded as a crank. However, he is quite popular. There's a bit of a split between archaeologists that merely think Hancock is an indication t
by AlotOfReading 4y ago
No. He's widely regarded as a crank. However, he is quite popular.
There's a bit of a split between archaeologists that merely think Hancock is an indication that Archaeology's public outreach is insufficient and those that think he's actively harming public perceptions of the field with misinformation. For the record, I'm more in the former camp.
Anyway, the SAA (an archaeology trade group) devoted 27 pages of a magazine issue to discussing that split and picking apart the arguments in one of Hancocks's recent books. You can find the magazine here to decide for yourself: http://onlinedigeditions.com/publication/?m=16146&i=634462&p=3&ver=html5 http://onlinedigeditions.com/publication/?m=16146&i=634462&p...
For fairness, here's Hancock's response: https://grahamhancock.com/saa-archaeological-record-response/ https://grahamhancock.com/saa-archaeological-record-response...
- bee_rider 4y agoYour "for fairness" response article includes: > [Graham's blog post] Before closing, however, I’m understandably very happy to quote here the useful concise summary of America Before given by anthropologist Jeb J. Card in his contribution to the issue (pp 26-30): >> [Card's review] Attempting to critique America Before: The Key to Earth’s Lost Civilization by Graham Hancock (2019) using the criteria of professional archaeology is doomed to failure, as his goals are outside of the materialist practice of scientific archaeology. In a nutshell, Hancock argues that an ancient civilization of the Pleistocene emerged in North America that was based not on material technology but on psychic/spiritual knowledge. It became a global sea-based society comparable with the late pre-Industrial British Empire. These Ice Age Americans (spoiler: Atlanteans) foresaw a cosmic disaster and spread memetic seeds of sacred knowledge of geometry, astronomy, and the Otherworld and how souls may navigate it around the world. After this civilization was destroyed by impact events from a comet during the Younger Dryas, these advanced people came to be remembered as magicians and gods. Seeking this knowledge today is a path to truly understanding reality and the spiritual elements denied by materialist science.” > [Graham's blog post] Card’s precis of my arguments is fair, and in general I’d say that his analysis of my work and its function is much more carefully thought through than that of any of the other contributors. If the author thinks the reviewer pointing to psychic Atlanteans in his work is treating him more fairly than the rest, that doesn't bode well for the overall work.
- tomcam 4y agoThanks for both of these links.