PseudoArchaeology: Views from Down-Under

Member of the US-based Comet Research Group Marc Young ( @Marc_Young_90) from Flinders University in Adeleide holds the view that "archaeologists are not scientists, and in fact, the discipline of archaeology is profoundly pseudoscientific". He justifies why in a text here: "This is 100% true, and i'll explain why"

This may be compared with his earlier essay 'Spiritual and Intellectual Colonialism: The Crusade Against Pseudoarchaeology', published 10th July 2020 on the Graham Hancock (sic) website).* In the eaerlier text he fails to define the topic, omitting iun what way archaeology differs from its imitation (clue: in the accepted methodology[ies] employed) merely noting superficially:

"...the only correct definition, based in etymology: pseudo is defined as ‘having the appearance of, false, fake, not genuine’. Thus, pseudoarchaeology is herein defined as something that is not archaeology but is masquerading as archaeology. "

I do not know how archaeology is taught in Flinders University, and which textbooks they use, but the second essay of their recent graduate is equally disappointing and lacking substance.

Basically if you read it carefully, his argument boils down (only) to "archaeology is pseudarchaeology, because archaeology is pseudoarchaeology". He can only quote basic literature from the 1980s(!) and has not grasped the essence of British post-processual argument.

He even misuses this, making a pastiche of two separate quotes by Hodder, omitting the qualifying arguments between them (he cites it as "Hodder (1984:467–468)", but the actual reference is Hodder (1984: and 30).** Apart from his cut-and-paste cherry-picking of statements made by yesterday's "authorities", he also harks on about the hoary old standby (non)argument about some unseemly US ruckus about "Clovis first". His only other argument is in fact from physical anthropology and ethics of handling of human remains, a subject that is indeed controversial everywhere.

I think the author of these texts is seeking validation and finds it among the guffawing lads of the "alternative-history" YouTuber crowd and is playing to their  gallery. Above all though, because I do not doubt his sincerity, he fails to step back (probably through lack of experience) from a focus on narrow issues involving methodology-free "Atlantist-catastrophist" ("alternative") models of the past to see the wider panorama of the discipline as a while before reaching his "conclusions".

* ...written, as he says, "in my History of Archaeological Thought class [in his undergraduate university course at Flinders PMB] with Former President of the World Archaeological Congress, and editor of the Encyclopedia of World Archaeology, Claire Smith, who graded it with a High Distinction". I would have marked it down for an excessive use of colloquialisms for a piece of academic writing.

** I think what he actually means is the same phrases reused by Hodder in another work of his (Theory and Practice in Archaeology 1992) where these separate phrases appear on pages  110 and 114 - but since these page numbers dont match up either, perhaps Young is citing yet another cut-and-paste fragments taken from yet another work by Hodder...

The work cited by Young: Hodder, I. 1984 Archaeology in 1984. Antiquity 58(222):25–32.