Pseudo-Archaeology & The Racism Behind Ancient Aliens

[Mythopoeika]

There was an awful lot of "be quiet, dear, grown-ups are talking" energy in the post I took exception to. For example, what connotations do you associate with the word "silly"?

Connotations? Having or showing a lack of common sense or judgement; absurd and foolish.

Being a troll =/= saying things you disagree with. So what do you find particularly trollish about her remarks?

She's pushing things just for a bit of devilment. Having a bit of a laugh. And in the process, raising her profile.

 

[eburacum]

No, this is a very serious and entirely justified attack on the arseholes who push the ancient aliens crap.

 

[Mythopoeika]

I can't believe so many people hold racist attitudes against aliens!

 

[Vardoger]

I can't believe so many people hold racist attitudes against aliens!

Yeah, like ancient aliens couldn't have done it?

 

[eburacum]

The Ancient Aliens mythology depends on a widely held disbelief that anybody other than Westerners can construct sophisticated architecture. Very few of these apparent interventions by aliens are imagined to have occurred in Western cultures.

 

[Krepostnoi]

Connotations? Having or showing a lack of common sense or judgement; absurd and foolish.

Blankety-blank supermatch time: you know how this works - you see the word and you complete the phrase. "Silly _______."

What words spring to mind?

 

[Vardoger]

The Ancient Aliens mythology depends on a widely held disbelief that anybody other than Westerners can construct sophisticated architecture. Very few of these apparent interventions by aliens are imagined to have occurred in Western cultures.

Nope. While many civilizations outside Europe was pretty advanced 2000-3000 BC, most European tribes was still in the megalithic period.

 

[Mythopoeika]

Blankety-blank supermatch time: you know how this works - you see the word and you complete the phrase. "Silly _______."

What words spring to mind?

'Billy'?
'Krepostnoi'?
Seriously, though - stop. You're betraying your own thinking processes.

 

[eburacum]

Nope. While many civilizations outside Europe was pretty advanced 2000-3000 BC, most European tribes was still in the megalithic period.

The Ancient Aliens belief system builds upon the calumnies of the earlier pseudoarchaeology that insisted (for instance) that the Mound Builders of the Americas must have been immigrants from Megalithic Europe.

From Krepostnoi's link;
https://hyperallergic.com/470795/pseudoarchaeology-and-the-racism-behind-ancient-aliens/

It’s an extension of the 19th-century myth of the mound builder. No way could the North American mounds and artifacts have been made by people of the First Nations, it had to be an “alien” (non-local) race. Rather than set up a white supremacy model, which may have not been as popular, von Däniken takes the “alien” further to “aliens” from outer space.

 

[eburacum]

Contemporary thought in archaeology concentrates on the achievements of local cultures, and largely dismisses the idea of imported expertise from more advanced cultures elsewhere. For instance the megalithic monuments of Orkney developed far from the influence of other stone-building cultures; there was no wave of megalith builders sweeping across Europe from the Middle East or the Mediterranean, but rather these developments emerged more or less spontaneously in multiple locations with little more inspiration than word-of-mouth (if that).

 

[Krepostnoi]

'Billy'?
'Krepostnoi'?
Seriously, though - stop. You're betraying your own thinking processes.

I've spent a lot of my life as an applied linguist, so of course my thinking processes often do revolve around the particular word choices people make and why they might do so. Spoiler alert - often the language we use reflects the way we think. Who knew, right? The point I was making with my "get back in the kitchen" remark is that I strongly doubt you'd have used that same adjective if it had been a man making those tweets. I've belaboured that point beyond my own patience, now, let alone anybody else's, and I'm sure you'll tell me I'm wrong anyway. But go ahead, I've lobbed the ball back into your court: respond to this in whatever manner you choose, and then let's agree to differ.

 

[Min Bannister]

Nope. While many civilizations outside Europe was pretty advanced 2000-3000 BC, most European tribes was still in the megalithic period.

Yes, I think that is kind of what the shows detractors are getting at. The idea that because most Europeans were still banging rocks together, it wasn't possible for anyone else to be building amazing civilisations and performing feats of engineering that we still can't get our heads around.

 

[Mythopoeika]

I've spent a lot of my life as an applied linguist, so of course my thinking processes often do revolve around the particular word choices people make and why they might do so. Spoiler alert - often the language we use reflects the way we think. Who knew, right? The point I was making with my "get back in the kitchen" remark is that I strongly doubt you'd have used that same adjective if it had been a man making those tweets. I've belaboured that point beyond my own patience, now, let alone anybody else's, and I'm sure you'll tell me I'm wrong anyway. But go ahead, I've lobbed the ball back into your court: respond to this in whatever manner you choose, and then let's agree to differ.

Now you're being silly!
I think as an 'applied linguist' you dropped the ball on this one and started digging a big hole for yourself.
Your over-analysis of what I said and your own prejudices filled in the blanks.
I can only conclude that you're a sexist!

 

[marhawkman]

I dunno, that somehow seems worse to me: the idea that the indigenous people in a given area were capable of such feats is somehow more difficult to believe - despite the tangible evidence - than the idea that it must have been aliens (aliens, for pity's sake!) instead. That seems pretty damn dismissive to me.

Indigenous? In many cases the peoples currently living near megalithic sites AREN'T related to who built them. Part of the archaeological process in cases like that is asking the question "Who built this?"

For example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacsayhuamán
One of the most important aspects of this site is that it predated the Inca. Unfortunately we know almost nothing about who built it. Why? Because the Inca didn't keep any records other than verbal traditions. Then again it's questionable how much the Inca know, because, again, the Inca didn't record what the place was like before they arrived. All they did was maintain a legend that the place was there before they arrived. People call the race that lived there before the Inca the "Killke". But that name is apparently an invention of archaeologists who had no name to call them. But this raises another question. If we don't even know the proper name of the "Killke" civilization how do we know they built the site? When did construction of Sacsayhuaman actually start?

Also it's disingenuous to characterize the Ancient Aliens nonsense as trying to say aliens actually BUILT the stuff. It's like in that one Predator movie, or that Star Trek episode... Aliens are alleged as the inspiration of ideas, not the actual architects.

Discussion of where the people that built Nan Madol got the knowledge to build it is certainly a worthwhile topic of discussion... especially since the "it was Polynesians" idea is kinda weak since most Polynesian groups didn't do Megalithic sites. Maybe it was a weird Polynesian group. But whoever built it was dead and gone before it was named Nan Madol. Most of what we know about the history of Nan Madol is from the natives living on the island, but these natives aren't even the descendants of the builders. Yeah, the people living on the island actually say that in their legends. The "Saudeleur" Dynasty allegedly founded by the builders was wiped out in a war 4 centuries ago. The legends about the construction of Nan Madol are rather fantastic too, since the core of the mythos is that a pair of wizards were the architects. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nan_Madol Yeah both Nan Madol and Leluh(the only similar site anywhere in the world) both were temple cities build on the edge of a populated island by a noble family who... were outsiders. What????

So while I'm perfectly happy to laugh at the Ancient Aliens crowd for being idiots, they ask questions worthy of being answered. How did people do this? WHO actually did this?

 

[Sharon Hill]

Maybe "racially motivated" is a better description of Ancient Aliens:

Robert Cargill, an assistant professor of Religious Studies and Classics at the University of Iowa who also served as an academic counterbalance on a number of episodes of Ancient Aliens, discussed the role of the program in supporting racist ideas of ancient capability:

There is an underlying ethnic bias against people of color that many white people don’t even recognize when the magnificent achievements of the ancient world are attributed to aliens instead of to their rightful creators — the ancestors of modern Egyptians, Iraqis, Guatemalans, Peruvians, etc. This is not to say that belief in ancient alien theory makes one racist. However, attributing the achievements of the forerunners of darker-skinned peoples to aliens because you believe they couldn’t have possibly done it themselves might be perceived as racists to the people of color who descend from these ancient innovators.

From https://hyperallergic.com/470795/pseudoarchaeology-and-the-racism-behind-ancient-aliens/

 

[Ladyloafer]

Maybe "racially motivated" is a better description of Ancient Aliens:

Robert Cargill, an assistant professor of Religious Studies and Classics at the University of Iowa who also served as an academic counterbalance on a number of episodes of Ancient Aliens, discussed the role of the program in supporting racist ideas of ancient capability:



From https://hyperallergic.com/470795/pseudoarchaeology-and-the-racism-behind-ancient-aliens/

And that link is the exact same one that started this thread! Not that it shouldnt be repeated. Its an interesting thread.

 

[marhawkman]

Maybe "racially motivated" is a better description of Ancient Aliens:

That's a fancy way of saying that people are offended by discussion of the idea. And again... BRITISH sites are just as much a part of the Ancient Aliens idiocy as everything else. For example:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stonehenge
It's the same basic question as most other megalithic sites. In fact this is where it got started. Multi-ton stone blocks stacked like dominoes. Who? how? Well it was built probably around 5000 years ago by a people who left no writing. We don't even know if it the descendants of the builders are still alive.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerne_Abbas_Giant
No one actually knows who made it, when, or why. And like the Nazca petroglyphs it's largely impossible to look at on foot. There is some reason to believe it was made in the 17th century though.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_of_Jupiter_(Roman_Heliopolis)
Yes that's right, one of them is a Roman temple! 800 ton stone slabs moved to a hilltop for foundation blocks!!!

So the idea that the AA movement is racially motived is unsupported by evidence.

Von Danniken used the Temple of Jupiter as one of the examples in his book. He didn't write the book to mock non-white people. He hit everyone equally. So while I think his book is nothing but amusing fiction, I don't see it as racist.

 

[Jim]

Lets give credit where credits due. Aliens did nothing to advance human civilization period regardless of race - ancestry, etc..

 

[Sharon Hill]

That's a fancy way of saying that people are offended by discussion of the idea. And again... BRITISH sites are just as much a part of the Ancient Aliens idiocy as everything else. For example:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stonehenge
It's the same basic question as most other megalithic sites. In fact this is where it got started. Multi-ton stone blocks stacked like dominoes. Who? how? Well it was built probably around 5000 years ago by a people who left no writing. We don't even know if it the descendants of the builders are still alive.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerne_Abbas_Giant
No one actually knows who made it, when, or why. And like the Nazca petroglyphs it's largely impossible to look at on foot. There is some reason to believe it was made in the 17th century though.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_of_Jupiter_(Roman_Heliopolis)
Yes that's right, one of them is a Roman temple! 800 ton stone slabs moved to a hilltop for foundation blocks!!!

So the idea that the AA movement is racially motived is unsupported by evidence.

Von Danniken used the Temple of Jupiter as one of the examples in his book. He didn't write the book to mock non-white people. He hit everyone equally. So while I think his book is nothing but amusing fiction, I don't see it as racist.

Hmm. I've heard more than one archaeologist express their opinions on this. In fact, I've heard about 10 and I'm not even looking that hard. When I do look, I find many "experts" harping about conspiracy and Fortean ideas that have a history of racially-charged claims and rhetoric. Von Daniken is just one. So, yeah, I've no problem with the conclusion that Ancient Aliens is racially motivated*. I'd go as far as to say that several in UFO community are the same. You can look up PLENTY of examples. To ignore this is, well, ignorant.

*Maybe not the only motivation, but it biases the effort.

Edit: I'd add that Marhawkman is not quite getting that racism includes suppressing cultural values and achievements. If that isn't the core of Ancient Aliens, I don't know what is.

 

[AlchoPwn]

Everything else that is discussed is far harder, if not impossible to explain with our current knowledge.

That entirely depends on who you read Min. With about 6 weeks training you too could build Puma Punku. There are some cunning tricks involved, but they are all low tech.

 

[eburacum]

Here's Von Daniken on the question of race, taken from Signs of the Gods:

• “The evolutionists say that man descends from monkeys. Yet who has ever seen a white monkey? Or a dark ape with curly hair such as the black race has?”;
• “…I am not concerned with comparisons within the major races, but only with solving the problem of how the first major races originated”;
• “Were the extraterrestrials able to opt between different races from the beginning? Did they endow different human groups with different abilities to survive in different climatic and geographical conditions?”
• ”Today it is assumed that primitive men had dark skins.”
• “Was the black race a failure and did the extraterrestrials change the genetic code by gene surgery and then programme a white or a yellow race?”
• “Nearly all negroes are musical: they have rhythm in their blood.”
• “I quite understand that I am playing with dynamite if I ask whether the extraterrestrials ‘allotted’ specific tasks to the basic races from the very beginning, i.e. programmed them with special abilities.”
• “I am not a racialist… Yet my thirst for knowledge enables me to ignore the taboo on asking racial questions simply because it is untimely and dangerous… why are we like we are? Once this basic question is accepted, we cannot and should not avoid the explosive sequel: is there a chosen race?”

This guy didn't just adapt the theories of the racist interwar pseudoarchaeologists, he swallowed them whole. and spat them out as extraterrestrial genetic engineering.

 

[blessmycottonsocks]

Good summary of some of the nonsense that has been written about Stonehenge's origins.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2008/sep/22/archaeology1

and of articles keen to trumpet speculation that Stonehenge was built by immigrants from Anatolia:

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...ders-origin-dna-migrant-farmers-a8872336.html

Why can't we simply accept the fact that indigenous ancient people (and that includes Britons) were far more industrious and experts in megalithic building and astronomical observation than we give them credit for?

 

[Kondoru]

His ideas are way out of date.

But really those of my youth, which said that people are all the same, are too.

Lets all sit back and examine all our ideas for potential pollitical correctness, then we will get nothing done.

And that will be progress.

 

[ramonmercado]

Good summary of some of the nonsense that has been written about Stonehenge's origins.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2008/sep/22/archaeology1

and of articles keen to trumpet speculation that Stonehenge was built by immigrants from Anatolia:

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...ders-origin-dna-migrant-farmers-a8872336.html

Why can't we simply accept the fact that indigenous ancient people (and that includes Britons) were far more industrious and experts in megalithic building and astronomical observation than we give them credit for?

No! The Ancient Britons exploited Immigrant Turkish construction workers!

 

[blessmycottonsocks]

No! The Ancient Britons exploited Immigrant Turkish construction workers!

Well I suppose we do celebrate Englishness every 23rd April by remembering a soldier from what is now Turkey, who killed an oversized crocodile, whilst serving with the Roman Legions in North Africa.

Go back far enough and we're ALL immigrants from Olduvai Gorge or somewhere nearby!

But how many generations does it take before people who settled in a particular land can be described as indigenous?

 

[eburacum]

The neolithic population replacement mentioned in that article in the Independent looks highly iffy. This wave of immigrants (usually known as the Beaker People migration) occurred between the different phases of construction at Stonehenge, so if it happened it didn't have any significant impact on megalithic monument-building.

 

[Frideswide]

. With about 6 weeks training you too could build Puma Punku. There are some cunning tricks involved, but they are all low tech.

I demand you publish a partwork! Do this thing now and I'll be your first subscriber!

(PS I agree but I still want the partwork!)

 

[gordonrutter]

The reason a lot of theses techniques seem so strange to us is that we no longer need to use them - we have other, usually less labout intensive methods, we would use now. So yes we would use cranes etc to build a pyramid now, if the Ancient Egyptians didn't have cranes they did have a lot of cheap labour so they used that instead. We have forgotten some of the techniques that we used in the past because we don't need them now.
I must admit I am of the opinion that Ancient Ailens should finish. Personally I do not believe in the hypothesis, but even if I did I do feel they have run out of things to talk about and many epsiodes are not even tangentially AA related and they clearly have nothing interesting / new to bring to the field.

 

[marhawkman]

The reason a lot of theses techniques seem so strange to us is that we no longer need to use them - we have other, usually less labout intensive methods, we would use now. So yes we would use cranes etc to build a pyramid now, if the Ancient Egyptians didn't have cranes they did have a lot of cheap labour so they used that instead. We have forgotten some of the techniques that we used in the past because we don't need them now.
I must admit I am of the opinion that Ancient Ailens should finish. Personally I do not believe in the hypothesis, but even if I did I do feel they have run out of things to talk about and many epsiodes are not even tangentially AA related and they clearly have nothing interesting / new to bring to the field.

Yeah the AA thing is interesting because it's sort of a counter-culture take on archaeology. It's thought provoking even if it's not meant to really be taken seriously.

A similar show that ditched the AA theme and focused on more scholarly takes on the subject matter would be more informative.

It'd still be rage inducing though.

 

[Lb8535]

Here's Von Daniken on the question of race, taken from Signs of the Gods:


This guy didn't just adapt the theories of the racist interwar pseudoarchaeologists, he swallowed them whole. and spat them out as extraterrestrial genetic engineering.

Yeah I think that's the book I remember ditching as a teen. Zero logic and uses non-existent data for his conclusions, which he then uses as the basis of a wild-ass and useless theory. Was Van Daniken a nazi? because this sounds a lot like what they were spouting.