Home > Pseudoarchaeology
Pseudoarchaeology is an aspect of pseudohistory. Both of them are forms of pseudoscience and refer to the ideologically-driven, usually sensational interpretation of the past. Pseudoarchaeology is based on an interpretation of material remains and sites (which may be quite genuine themselves), using criteria that lie outside of a critical, scientific framework. Pseudoarchaeology also includes forms of protoscience.In a favorite area of pseudohistory claims are made that a major immigrant group of modern North Americans made a "discovery" of the New World before Columbus. Archaeology unearths a temporary Viking encampment at L'Anse aux Meadows. Pseudoarchaeology associates a stone tower at Newport, Rhode Island with Vikings or claims Viking remains in Minnesota.
1 Usage
Three common areas of pseudoarchaeology are driven by revealed religions, by nationalist primacy or by the supernatural.
The term pseudoarchaeology is used by many to refer to those religious perspectives that do not follow the accepted norms of scientific inquiry, such as Creationism, as well as to the pursuit of untestable hypotheses or theories, such as the influence of UFOs or ancient astronauts on past civilizations. Pseudoarchaeology includes the investigation of theories generally discounted by scientific investigators, such as the existence of Noah's Ark on Mount Ararat, lost continents such as Atlantis or Lemuria, and the idea of direct contact between the ancient civilizations of Egypt and the Maya.
It can also include scientific investigations in which the ability to maintain a critical, scientific perspective is diminished by religious belief. An example that is frequently cited would be research on the Shroud of TurinThe Shroud of Turin is a linen cloth bearing the image of a man who appears to have been physically traumatized in a manner consistent with crucifixion. It is presently kept in the royal chapel of the Cathedral of Saint John the Baptist in Turin, Italy..
Religious ideologies are not the only motivators of pseudoarchaeology. Extreme nationalist agendas and other proposed justifications of cultural primacy or superiority often drive scientifically or historically unwarranted interpretations of archaeological sites. Quite genuine archaeological finds may be converted to pseudoarchaeology by biased interpretors. Such motives of course are rarely explicitly stated, but the pseudoarchaeological interpretation or evidence is characteristically brought to bear in order to fabricate a supposed proof of some axiom: all the Xes of antiquity derived from Y. and the like. To cite any particular example, however, would provoke a storm of furious criticism from partisans, and must be avoided here. When the opposing camps of interpretation split along familiar contemporary ideological or cultural divides, however, the dispassionate observer suspects that some pseudoarchaeological interpretations are likely to be at work.
Not all genuine archaeology is free of authentic controversy, to be sure. German archaeologist Heinrich SchliemannHeinrich Schliemann ( January 6, 1822 December 26, 1890) was a German archaeologist who excavated Troy, Mycenae and Tiryns, lending material weight to Homer's Iliad and Vergil's Aeneid as reflecting historical events. His career began before archaeology d's expeditions to find the ancient city of TroyThis article is about the city of Troy / Ilion as described in the works of Homer, and the location of an ancient city associated with it. For other uses see Troy (disambiguation) and Ilion (disambiguation). Troy ( Greek Τροα Troia (, following cues in Homer's IliadThe Iliad is, alongside The Odyssey one of the two major Greek epic poems traditionally attributed to Homer, a blind Ionian poet. The Iliad and the Odyssey were considered by Greeks of the classical age and after as the most important works in Ancient Gre have sometimes been advanced by the community of pseudoarchaeology, to show that sometimes radical new approaches within the discipline are derided at first. Schliemann declared one archaeological layer in the tellA tell (Arabic, or tel תל, Hebrew) is an archaeological site in the form of an earthen mound that results from the accumulation and subsequent erosion of material deposited by human occupation over long periods of time. A tell mostly consist he excavated to be the lost city of Troy, and this identification was then accepted. Modern archaeology has corrected his identification: right site, wrong layer. It is not the results that define pseudoarchaeology, but the methodology.
