Easter With Graham Hancock, "The Fight for the Past": Sedona April 19-20, 2025 (Part two)

(Follows on from: "Easter With Graham Hancock, "The Fight for the Past": Sedona April 19-20, 2025 (Part one)")

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The pseudo-conference's ending "Why the past isn’t safe in the hands of archaeologists" seems to be the crux of the whole meeting, and the rest of the regurgitated junk of the two-day event is just padding to justify not charging an entrance fee of 20$. Hancock implies that  archaeologists are incompetent or agenda-driven, an idea that requires careful unpacking, as it touches on the nature of scientific inquiry, human bias, and the specific dynamics of archaeology as a discipline. While archaeology isn’t flawless and biases can exist (which are aspects that are far from being ignored by archaeologists themselves after all it was the basis for the whole post-processual movement of the 1980s onwards), its commitment to empirical evidence and self-correction makes it a far more reliable steward of the human past than pseudoarchaeological sensationalism with its cherrypicking of evidence and embedded preconceptions.

How about comparing Hancock's argument to "meat should not be in the hands of butchers"  

Meat is our shared inheritance. Butchers have no right to claim a monopoly over it, to seek to control what is done with carcasses, to demand that only they should be allowed to divide them and apportion the meat to appropriate cuts and get acceptation of the designated health checks done as the only legitimate ones, or to mock and smear the work of those who suggest alternative perspectives.

Well, Hancock can his kids with bits of a carcass prepared by somebody who's never done the training about any of the issues concerned. I think though we can see that - even if "anyone can use a knife or a cleaver" - the advantages of consuming joints of meat (or archaeology) properly prepared can be appreciated by most.  

As for Hancock's characterisation of archaeology, it seems to have come from the back of a cornflake packet of the 1970s.

1) I cannot think what he has in mind with the "known from the unknown". If you want to find out whether there is dense Bronze Age settlement of alluvial floodplains in Catalonia, you would not start off by looking at the known Bronze Age settlement on the North Yorkshire Moors known from earlier surveys. You'd get your survey teams out into the terra incognita you are studying, no? If Graham Hancock would go about it another way, it might indicate why he's never received a research grant to do such a survey to prove his hypotheses    

2) That allegedly "[we can never truly know the past if we] limit our attention, as most archaeologists do, to “tools and trash”, ... makes no sense. Archaeology deals with the material evidence of the past, so “tools and trash"(etc,, etc.), not "what I was told in a drug-crazed vision by some pulsating multicoloured jaguar-lady about Maya dance rituals"  or "what the Ethiopian version of the Book of Enoch says about antediluvian spiders". These are NOT ARCHAEOLOGY. The degree to which you believe that imaginary jaguar ladies and Ethiopian spider stories are really any kind of a key to the past is nothing to do with archaeology. They are as much outside its methodology as divining from tealeaves. Get a grip on reality Hancock.

3) “[we can never truly know the past if we insist] if our primary career goal isn’t to challenge the status quo – a risky move for any archaeologist – but to seek out evidence that reinforces it". Basically that shows how little Hancock has experience with science as a whole. Second proposition first, if teh status quo does not reflect reality (eg water as one of the four primary elements/ water as a compound of two gaseous elements, or the existence of "phlogiston") to seek out evidence that reinforces the status quo inevitably will reveal features that challenge the status quo. These would have to be ignored. In other words Hancock is suggesting that real science relies on cherry-picking the evidence - that which fits what he wants to prove - as much as pseudoscience. yet it is precisely the matter of the handling of falsification by evidence 'not fitting' that differentiates the two.

As for the other "musing" by the conference's "guru" that alleges that: "most archaeologists" do not have as a "primary career goal" a desire to challenge the status quo but to seek out evidence that reinforces it, because to do otherwise would somehow  be "a risky move for any archaeologist". What? This characterization is flawed. Science, including archaeology, thrives on questioning assumptions and testing hypotheses, not reinforcing a status quo. While career pressures can incentivize safer research, most archaeologists aim to uncover truth through evidence, not to uphold preconceived narratives. The claim exaggerates a systemic bias and ignores the field’s rigorous methods that prioritise data over dogma. Normal science progresses by balancing scepticism and evidence, not by blindly supporting established views. Why does Hancock,  who has apparently never worked a day in an archaeological project, let alone academy hold such views? One might guess that he's been listening perhaps to some disgruntled folk who did not make it in the cutthroat world that some areas of academe most certainly are (Marc Young, "the world’s first Geo-cosmic archaeologist" for example?)* As an archaeologist sitting over the past x decades of countless scientific conferences, presentations, meetings, policy discussions, I can confidently say that where I work there is no lack of people wanting to make a name for themselves by presenting really well-argued cases (and some of lesser persuasive power) for some innovative new idea or interpretation, which is then openly discussed. That actually includes sessions held in deepest Communist times actually in the Soviet Bloc, where this (then) could happen. Some of those innovators are now my friends and senior (ahem) figures in Polish archaeology. And we still discuss each others' new ideas and ongoing work. Hancock might learn a lot if he actually paid attention to how the subject works in different environments. 

Finally, I really find it laughable that it is precisely Trump's MAGAmerica that Hancock and his followers are promoting the need for a freedom to create a plurality of alternative narratives about the past. This seems to be an additional example of Graham Hancock walking around with his eyes closed, as if in a fog of confusion (is it the ayahuasca?) .  It is Trump's America since January 20th that has dictated (by Executive Order) that there is only ONE, United-America-history of the nation. As I write, the Trump regime is using federal funding, investigations, and executive actions to pressure institutions into aligning with conservative priorities and shape academic environments, curbing freedom of research and teaching. Recently, the Trump administration has escalated its conflict with Harvard University, one of the most prominent institutions in the U.S., over issues related to campus policies and funding. The administration has frozen over $2 billion in federal grants to Harvard, citing the university’s refusal to comply with demands to audit student viewpoints and eliminate Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs. This sets a dangerous precedent and we all know where this has led in the past (again the Soviet Bloc and modern Russia post 2012/2021 come to mind). This vision of a joyful accommodation of a  plurality of visions of the past may owe more to historical stereotypes about America than current realities. Universities have an important social role in helping formulate informed opinions and policy, they should not be under the dictates of any regime, fortunately academics in teh US are begining to awaken to the threat (Maya Yang, 'US universities’ faculty unite to defend academic freedom after Trump’s attacks' Guardian  16 Apr 2025). I can't see the pseudoarchaeologists are likely to be supporting them.   

* "I threw away my PhD, my prestigious scholarships, and any hope of a career in the discipline I loved because I refused to compromise my principles and my integrity. Science is corrupt at the highest levels". Reading more of this gentleman's work, and especially how he phrases it might call into question his narrative about why he no longer works where he did).