Aliens archaeology why do we get history wrong on purpose
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a few years ago
a stranger sitting next to me on a plane
asked what i did for a living
i told him that i’m an archaeologist and
i study the ancient maya
he said wow i love archaeology
and told me how excited he gets when
hearing about new finds
then he told me how amazing it is that
aliens from the planet nibiru had come
to earth and established the ancient
sumerian culture in mesopotamia
i have these conversations a lot
on planes in bookstores and in bars
people want to talk with me about
pseudo-archaeology
something that seems like archaeology
but isn’t
it involves making wild and unproven
claims about the human past
things like aliens built the pyramids or
survivors from the lost continent of
atlantis
invented hieroglyphic writing
now most of us know that claims like
these
are unfounded and frankly absurd
yet they’re everywhere they’re on tv
shows
in movies and in books
think of the history channel series
ancient aliens
currently in its 15th season
or of the most recent indiana jones
movie about the kingdom of the crystal
skull
or eric von danigan’s classic book
chariots of the gods which has sold over
70
million copies
here’s the crucial question who cares
it’s just entertainment right isn’t it a
nice escape from reality and a fun way
to think about the world
it’s not most pseudo-archaeology is
racist and xenophobic and like other
forms of entertainment
it influences our culture in real ways
let me give you an example it’s
common to hear pseudo-archaeologists
claim that groups like the ancient
egyptians
or the ancient maya accomplished
incredible things
but only with the help of outside groups
like aliens or people from atlantis what
you
rarely hear is pseudo-archaeologists
claiming
that say romans had help building the
coliseum
or that greeks had help building the
parthenon
why is that for pseudo-archaeologists
europeans could have accomplished their
feats on their own
but non-europeans must have had outside
guidance
claims like these are not just
outrageous
they are offensive here and in
so many other instances
pseudo-archaeology
sustains myths of white supremacy
disparages non-europeans
and discredits their ancestors
achievements
i’ve spent the last 12 summers doing
archaeological field work in the maya
area
several years back i was staying in a
small village along the belize
guatemala border i spent
day after day in the lab staring at tiny
brown eroded pieces of ceramics
the maya man who lived across the street
made slate carvings
to sell to tourists he’d stopped by
every once in a while to chat and one
day he brought
over a slate carving and it was this
image
the image carved into the sarcophagus
lid of the maya king pakal
around his death in 683 a.d
this image is incredible and it’s
complex
it shows the deceased king rising from
the jaws of the underworld
to be reborn as a deity in the center is
a stylized world tree
that extends from the underworld through
the realm of the living
into the upper world around the edges is
a sky
band with symbols for the sun moon
and stars i was
so excited to talk with my neighbor
about
ancient maya religion cosmology
and iconography instead
he wanted to talk about an ancient
aliens episode he had seen
the one about the maya and he told me
that this image was of an astronaut at
the controls of a rocket ship
i was shocked instead of marveling at
his
own ancestors he was in awe of a
fictional alien
he even told me that one day he hoped to
give this carving to eric von daniken
father of the ancient aliens phenomenon
pseudoarchaeology undoubtedly harms its
subjects
often indigenous people like the maya
but it also harms its viewers it harms
all of us like other forms of racism
it exacerbates inequality and prevents
us from appreciating
and benefiting from human diversity
what’s really scary is that
pseudo-archaeology
is a small part of a much bigger
problem it’s just one example of people
getting history wrong
on purpose of people knowingly
changing historical and archaeological
facts
why would anybody do that
often the past is knowingly changed
either to justify racism
in the present or to present a nicer
version of history
a version of history that we can all
take pride in
six years ago jefferson county colorado
became a battleground over how to teach
american history
to high school students the advanced
placement curriculum had
been expanded to include things like
the removal of native americans to
reservations
and the rise of extreme economic
inequality
members of the local school board were
upset
they vigorously protested the changes
arguing that the new curriculum
didn’t do enough to promote capitalism
or american exceptionalism
right now we are in the midst of a
heated debate
over public monuments to controversial
figures
people like robert e lee and christopher
columbus
should these monuments be left as they
are
destroyed or put in museums
and what should happen to the protesters
who deface these monuments
should they be praised for helping
debunk myths of white supremacy
or should they be punished for
vigilantism
and lawlessness what do we make of
scenes
like this for me
debates about history curricula and
public monuments suggest
similar messages first the past
is political what we choose to remember
and forget relates directly to current
political concerns
second we need to consider who presents
the past
who chooses the content of history
textbooks
and the subject matter of public
monuments
imagine how our understanding of history
might be different
if it was told by the marginalized
rather than the powerful
we can help combat racism and xenophobia
today
by changing how we think about the past
archaeologists need to do two things
first we need to make our discipline
more inclusive
we need to work with and for the
descendants of the people we study
richard leventhal’s work at tiasuco
mexico
is groundbreaking pun intended for
over a century foreign archaeologists
have traveled to the maya area
to excavate the things they thought were
interesting
mostly temples and pyramids
leventhal took a different approach
instead
he asked the contemporary maya of
tiasuko
what they thought was interesting and it
turns out they didn’t particularly care
about
temples or pyramids they were interested
in the cast
war a major but understudied
colonial period maya rebellion
second we need to make archaeology more
accessible
the last time i walked into a bookstore
i asked where i could find the
archaeology books
the clerk took me to a section labeled
ancient mysteries and
lost knowledge it had books with titles
like extraplanetary experiences
and what is absolutely absurd about this
is that real archaeology archaeology
based
in scientific facts and historical
context
is fascinating you don’t need aliens to
make it interesting
it’s up to us archaeologists
to find new ways to share our work with
the public
and this used to be the norm in the
1950s there was a game show
on cbs called what in the world
the host would present an object an
artifact
and the archaeologists contestants would
try to figure out
what this thing was and where it was
from
the show was funny and interesting
and exposed viewers to the diversity of
human cultures
beginning in the mid to late 1960s
archaeology changed focus instead of
concentrating on public
engagement archaeologists began working
together
to professionalize the discipline
on the plus side we now have things like
bayesian analysis of radiocarbon dates
and theoretical approaches like the new
materialisms
but in the process archaeology left the
public behind
shows like what in the world became less
common
and pseudo-archaeology emerged to fill
the void
but we can all contribute to changing
how we think about the past
when you see a pseudo-archaeological
claim
be skeptical and know that if you
post about atlantis tweet about
ancient aliens or forward a clip from a
pseudo-archaeology tv show
even if it’s not your intention you may
be promoting
racism and xenophobia also know that the
past is alive it is political
it is ever changing and it influences
our daily lives in meaningful ways
so the next time that you watch the
history channel
read an archaeology book or view a
public monument
remember that every statement about the
past
is a powerful statement about the
present
thank you
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