1.3: Understanding Ancient Mysteries- Archaeology, Pseudoarchaeology, and the Importance of Archaeological Heritage

David S. Anderson, Department of Anthropological Sciences, Radford University

Learning Objectives

• Distinguish pseudoarchaeological approaches from archaeological approaches
• Analyze the influences that drive people to support pseudoarchaeological claims

The stonemasons of the Inka Empire built some of the most remarkable architecture in human history. The walls at the famous fortress of Saksaywaman stand two to three times as tall as a human being and stretch for hundreds of meters.^[1] Even more remarkable than the size of the walls are the blocks used to build them. Instead of using rectangular blocks like those found in most architectural traditions around the globe, the blocks of Saksaywaman often have five, six, seven, or even more facets and fit tightly together without mortar. More astonishing still is the fact that this level of precision was achieved with massive blocks far exceeding what one person or even a group of people could easily lift.

Figure 1: The Walls of Saksaywaman, Wikimedia Commons

In the modern era, many curious travelers have made the pilgrimage to Saksaywaman so they could marvel at this feat of human engineering. Among these travelers, there have been some visitors who questioned whether the Inka masons could have truly built these massive walls. After all, construction workers today resort to cranes and other mechanized methods to move similar-sized objects. But if these walls were not built by the Inka, who could have built them? Our doubtful visitors have provided many speculative answers to this question, ranging from the descendants of the lost continent of Atlantis to visiting space aliens who saw fit to offer humanity a helping hand.

There is a notable problem with these alternative answers. Despite the enormity of the walls, archaeologists have been able to demonstrate how the Inka masons built them by examining data from a variety of Inka settlements. Many stone blocks at these other sites exhibit similar patterns of construction, although on a less monumental scale. At some of these sites, a few blocks retain small stone protrusions. These protrusions were used in combination with wooden poles to create the simplest of machines, a lever, to raise and lower the blocks until the perfect fit had been achieved (Protzen, 1993). Ideally, these protrusions should have been removed from the blocks when the wall was finished, but the Inka Empire came to a tragic end when Spanish colonizers arrived (as I will further address below) and some building projects were left unfinished. While it may seem remarkable that the blocks of Saksaywaman were lifted with wooden poles, any modern engineer can attest to the remarkable power of levers.

Alternative claims in archaeology, like those put forward for the building of the walls of Saksaywaman, have enjoyed great popularity over the years. They have been featured as plot points in Hollywood blockbusters such as Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, hit videogames such as Assassin’s Creed, and the Stargate SG-1 television series. They have been found in bestselling books like 1421: The Year China Discovered the World by Gavin Menses and Fingerprints of the Gods by Graham Hancock. Television producers have created infotainment documentaries alleging a variety of spurious claims about the human past, including Netflix’s Ancient Apocalypse and the History Channel’s Ancient Aliens. In the face of this rising tide, many archaeologists have spoken out against these claims, yet their voices seem to have had little effect.

Some may ask, “What is the harm in a few entertaining speculations about the past?” For one, our collective reputation for human achievement is at stake. By denying the Inka stonemasons credit for their work building the walls of Saksaywaman, we are denying the brilliance and innovative skill of human ancestors. Furthermore, all too often these “entertaining speculations” are made primarily in reference to structures built by Indigenous peoples, and as a result these speculations become targeted prejudice that questions the achievements of non-Western peoples. In addition, alternative claims represent an assault on critical thinking. In most cases, alternative claims about archaeology can be debunked with surprisingly little effort. Yet new believers are drawn in on a regular basis. A survey conducted by Chapman University (2018) found that 41% of Americans professed a belief that archaeological evidence supported the claim of ancient alien visitors. That number had doubled since 2015. In the same survey, 57% of Americans claimed that Atlantis, or something like it, was a real place. Both of these claims have been debunked repeatedly (Colavito, 2005; Kershaw, 2018). The fact that people are so easily seduced by blatantly false claims should be a matter of great concern to us all.

Figure 2. Results from the Chapman University Survey of American Fears

The purpose of this chapter is to engage with these alternative claims in archaeology instead of brushing them aside. Many archaeologists who have attempted to address these issues have focused on debunking claims; that is, proving why particular alternative claims about the human past are incorrect. This is important work, but with the continuing rise in popularity of alternative claims, it is apparent that debunking is not enough. To combat this misinformation, we need to understand what drives these claims and what the history is behind them. We need to understand the difference between archaeology and pseudoarchaeology.

What Is Pseudoarchaeology?

Pseudoarchaeology can be a difficult concept to define. It is a subject that includes not only claims for Atlantis and ancient alien contact but also claims that Indigenous Americans did not build Serpent Mound in Ohio, USA, or that Stonehenge in England was built by magic or giants. Pseudoarchaeological claims misrepresent the archaeological record and archaeological methods in order to support predetermined conclusions. Yet when an archaeologist dismisses pseudoarchaeological claims on these grounds, people often perceive the archaeologist as an authority figure who is defending the establishment. Pseudoarchaeologists have capitalized on dismissals of their claims by claiming that archaeologists are close-minded and bound by the paradigms of their discipline. It has even been alleged that archaeologists actively conspire to conceal humanity’s true past. As a result, proponents of pseudoarchaeology are able to present themselves as a group of rebel outsiders who are discriminated against for their beliefs but who nonetheless fight for the truth. That is a powerful position from which to attract new followers.

The characterization of archaeologists as inflexible and blinded by tradition is demonstrably untrue. The very nature of archaeological discourse involves debate, argument, and revision in the face of new data. Archaeology does not exist without change. For example, archaeologists once insisted that the remains of the Clovis culture represented the earliest human settlers in the Americas. For a period, this claim was unassailable and anyone who suggested they had found older archaeological remains in the Americas faced skeptical and disbelieving colleagues. Slowly, however, archaeological evidence for an earlier occupation mounted with excavations at sites like Monte Verde in Chile, the Meadowcroft rock shelter in Pennsylvania, USA, and, most recently, White Sands in New Mexico, USA. The Clovis First proponents did not give up their position easily, but by the 1990s the weight of evidence had begun to convince the archaeological community that a new understanding of the earliest inhabitants of the Americas was needed (Meltzer, 2021).

For another example we can look to the Norse legends that implied that Vikings crossed the Atlantic Ocean and explored the North American coastline. With no physical proof, archaeologists were happy to assign these tales to the category of myth, but when excavations at L’Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland, Canada, uncovered clear examples of a Norse settlement (Ingstad & Ingstad, 2001), archaeologists rapidly changed their opinions about the veracity of these tales. The idea that interpretations of the past can and will change when new data is discovered is inherent to archaeology.

Yet the divide between archaeology and pseudoarchaeology remains and we have trouble defining pseudoarchaeology without resorting to an “I’m right and you’re wrong!” mindset. Ultimately, the difference between these two approaches can be best defined through epistemology, a word that I first learned while reading an early edition of Ken Feder’s book Frauds, Myths, and Mysteries: Science and Pseudoscience in Archaeology (2019). Epistemology refers broadly to the study of knowledge, but we can simplify this concept to “how you know what you know.” For example, you know that the sun rises in the East not only because you read it in a book (a secondary source) but because you have watched it happen (a primary source). Modern archaeologists rely on an epistemology rooted in the scientific method, which requires analysis of empirical data analysis and a focus on the context in which data is embedded. An ancient pot is just a pot, but when we know whether it was found in a royal palace or alongside a humble hearth, we can learn much more about the people who made it. Archaeological interpretations must be based on the observation of all available data points in relation to their context instead of by looking at a single data point in isolation.

The epistemological difference between archaeology and pseudoarchaeology can be illustrated with a classic example: the Kensington Runestone. In 1898, a Norwegian American farmer named Olaf Ohman found a stone slab on his farm outside of Kensington, Minnesota. The slab was covered with an inscription written in medieval Scandinavian runes. Ohman brought the stone into Kensington and its existence was reported in the local newspaper. As Minnesota was home to many Norwegian immigrants in the 19th century, it was not long before someone was found who could read the script. The inscription told the story of a group of wandering Vikings who had made it all the way to Minnesota in the 14th century CE. Advocates for the authenticity of the runestone adopted a pseudoarchaeological epistemology, proclaiming that this one solitary artifact demonstrated the existence of an expansive Viking exploration program that reached into the heart of North America.

In contrast, archaeologists have asked what other data points are available. As the runestone was found in an empty field, there is no immediate context to compare it to; that is, no other Viking-style artifacts or structures were found. Hundreds of archaeological sites have been excavated throughout Minnesota and no other sites show signs of Viking visitors. Instead, only Native American artifacts have been found in contexts that date before the 16th century CE. If archaeologists have proven anything about human nature, it is that humans are messy. Either through deliberate or accidental action, we leave trails of objects behind us wherever we go. No matter how fastidious the Kensington Viking explorers might have been, they would have left something else behind. Take for example the legacy left by European explorer James Cook. Today the South Pacific is littered with artifacts that Cook and his sailors left behind. The same can be said of other European explorers, including Christopher Columbus, Hernando de Soto, and even the actual Viking explorers who founded the village at the L’Anse aux Meadows mentioned above. The idea that a group of explorers would leave behind a single runestone describing their voyage and nothing else should inspire a great deal of skepticism.

The nail in the coffin of the Kensington Runestone came not from archaeological evidence, since there is no contextual evidence, but from an analysis of the inscription. Linguist Henrik Williams (2012) has shown that both the runes and the language used in the Kensington Runestone are inconsistent with a 14th-century Norse inscription. For example, the inscription uses the phrase opthagelse farth, meaning “journey of exploration,” but that phrase did not come into widespread usage until the 16th century. Viking explorers in the 14th century, like those alleged in the Kensington Runestone, would have used different terms and written different runes. Given the lack of supporting archaeological evidence and the critical analysis of the text, most archaeologists believe that the Kensington runestone represents the work of 19th-century forgers.

Pseudoarchaeology is frequently characterized by an epistemology that privileges solitary or anomalous data points instead of the plethora of consistent and reinforcing data points that archaeologists favor. There is an undeniable glamour in the pseudoarchaeology approach. It fosters the idea that one thoughtful individual may uncover the long-overlooked artifact that will overturn centuries of dry and dusty academic opinion. A traditional archaeological epistemology, however, provides a greater degree of confidence in our interpretations by incorporating not just a single artifact but all surrounding artifacts and their associated context.

Thus, pseudoarchaeology is characterized by a misrepresentation of mainstream archaeology and by privileging singular data points and ignoring their context. Nevertheless, people are often drawn to pseudoarchaeological claims. Despite the clear and evident problems with the Kensington runestone, many people today continue to believe that it is an authentic Viking artifact. Among the most ardent proponents of the stone’s authenticity are the inhabitants of the town of Kensington. Pride in a community and in the accomplishments of ancestors can be powerful motivating factors that lead people to accept controversial claims as true. Other pseudoarchaeological claims, however, have more complicated histories and thus have more complicated reasons for attracting adherents. Below we will look at two famous pseudoarchaeological claims, where they come from, and why their claims have been so enduring.

The Lost Continent of Atlantis

The lost continent of Atlantis has a particularly seductive charm that has kept the story alive in the subconscious of Westerners for more than 2,000 years. Today, it is a notably popular pseudoarchaeological topic; a new “explorer” claims to have found the ruins of Atlantis almost every year. Regrettably, these claims of discovery are often picked up by major news networks and run as a break between more serious stories. Because approximately half of Americans believe that Atlantis could be a real place, it is worth stepping back and looking at where the story originates and why it has such sweeping popularity.

The original account of Atlantis comes from the writings of the Classical Greek philosopher Plato, who described Atlantis in his books Timaeus and Critias. It is important to keep in mind that Plato was not a historian or a collector of myths; he was a philosopher who wrote dialogues between various characters to debate complex moral and ontological problems. Plato’s character Critias tells the story of Atlantis, a city that existed 9,000 years ago, beyond the Pillars of Hercules (i.e., the Straits of Gibraltar). The city was located in the center of a continent larger than Libya and Asia combined (i.e., larger than North Africa and Southwest Asia) and was built in a series of concentric circles defined by alternating canals and artificial islands, each topped with elaborate architecture and walls of gold and silver. At the center of the city there was a beautiful temple built to honor the god Poseidon. Plato also said that this magnificent city was the capital of a tyrannical empire bent on invading Europe, but the tiny village of Athens (Plato’s hometown) bravely stood fast against the invaders and saved Greece—and all of Europe—from enslavement. After the invasion failed, the gods destroyed Atlantis for its hubris.

While this description is intriguing, it is clear that the story is not literal history. As a philosopher, Plato regularly incorporated hypothetical examples to illustrate his point, the most famous of which is the allegory of the cave, which appears in his book The Republic. In Timaeus and Critias, Plato emphasized the allegorical nature of Atlantis by placing it 9,000 years before his time and beyond the Pillars of Hercules; in other words, “a long time ago in a place far, far, away.” Furthermore, Plato described Atlantis as looking like the Greek city-states of his lifetime. If the city had existed 9,000 years before Plato’s time, tremendous cultural differences would have existed between Atlantis and Classical Greece (think, for example, of the vast differences between contemporary England and England under Roman occupation just 2,000 years ago). Finally, Plato alleged not just that Atlantis existed 9,000 years earlier but also that Athens existed that far in the past. Despite more then a century of archaeological investigation and study of the Athenian acropolis, no evidence of a 9,000-year-old Athens has ever been found.

Plato’s story of Atlantis was intended as a parable to warn the citizens of Athens not to succumb to the dangers of hubris, a sense of overwhelming pride. As the rulers of a great empire and the children of Poseidon, the leaders of Atlantis saw themselves as better than their fellow human beings and even on par with the gods themselves. In the parable, as a result of this vanity, the gods destroyed Atlantis forever, sinking it beneath the ocean. The intent of this story for Plato’s audience, the citizens of Athens, was crystal clear: one should live a humble and pious life, always honoring the gods. Plato thought the Athenians, residents of an influential city in the Classical Greek world, needed to hear this lesson.

Plato’s moral parable was little known outside of scholarly circles until 1882 when a former Minnesota Congressman, Ignatius Donnelley, published a book titled Atlantis: The Antediluvian World (1882). Donnelley had decided that Plato’s Atlantis was not the moral parable that it appeared to be on the surface, but instead represented a hidden chapter in humanity’s ancient past representing the origin of all Western civilization. To prove his claim, Donnelley turned to the archaeological record. While Atlantis itself was beyond his reach beneath the Atlantic Ocean, he attempted to identify the refugees of the sunken city by looking for similarities in the archaeological record around the world.

The principle on which Donnelley was working has become known as diffusionism among archaeologists. Diffusionism is based on the idea that a particular technology (such as metallurgy) or a stylistic tradition (such as Doric columns) was developed first in one location and then later spread to neighboring regions due to the effectiveness of the technology or the popularity of the style. This is a reasonable explanation, and it was widely used by archaeologists in the 19th and early 20th-century.

Using this approach, Donnelly focused his argument on the ancient Egyptian and ancient Maya cultures and claimed that they had so many similarities that the only possible explanation was that both cultures had derived from refugees from Atlantis. To prove his point, Donnelly pointed to superficial similarities such as the fact that both cultures had writing systems and upright stone monuments. However, he ignored significant differences in technology, style, language, political structure, and even chronology. The Classic Maya cities hit their greatest florescence almost 1,000 years after the last Egyptian pharaoh sat on the throne. Ultimately, Donnelly argued, the majority of the complex cultures of the ancient world were in fact composed of descendants of refugees from Atlanta.

Despite the obvious problems with his argument, Donnelly’s work found notable popularity and succeeded in lodging the dream of Atlantis in the public consciousness. Two main reasons can be identified for Donnelly’s success. First, while the existence of ancient Maya culture was widely known in the United States, thanks in large part to the travel narratives of diplomat John Stephens, very little was actually known about the Maya. Thus, when Donnelly compared the Egyptians to the Maya, very few people knew enough about the Maya to recognize whether the comparisons were valid. The second and perhaps more compelling reason for Donnelly’s success lay in the archaeological work of his contemporary, Heinrich Schliemann. In the 1870s, shortly before Donnelly published his book, Schliemann was widely hailed as the discoverer of the legendary city of Troy that Homer described in ancient Greek epic poems. The public was dazzled by the discovery of one legendary Greek city; why would it not be easily convinced that claims of the discovery of a second were legitimate? Yet despite the mutual origins of Plato’s philosophical dialogues and Homer’s epic poems in Greek literature, there are notable differences between them. Plato composed his dialogues and the hypothetical allegories in them with a deliberate intent to deliver a moral commentary on society, while Homer’s poems represent the final written form of a tradition of oral history that was centuries long and very likely was inspired by real events. In addition, Schliemann actually excavated an archaeological site (although his methods were not up to modern standards), while Donnelly’s claims were based purely on speculation.

The long-standing popularity of Atlantis, however, lies in how Donnelly transformed Plato’s parable. Instead of serving as an example of tyranny and hubris, Donnelly’s Atlantis presented a source for the world’s ancient civilizations, a source not acknowledged by the emerging academic field of archaeology. Donnelly is a classic example of an outsider who believes they alone have uncovered what the professionals have missed, but he was so consumed with proving his predetermined conclusion that he would accept anything as evidence of Atlantis. Rogue outsiders continue to dominate the hunt for Atlantis, and they trumpet their “success” on infotainment documentaries and in YouTube videos in attempts to claim that the establishment will not listen to their evidence. The quest to find Atlantis is less about archaeology and more about our desire to believe a lone outsider can upset centuries of academic research.

Ancient Alien Visitors

The pseudoarchaeological claims of ancient alien visitors have not endured the test of time in the same way as Plato’s Atlantis has, but if possible, these claims have aroused even more ardent supporters. While this topic incorporates a variety of claims, the general argument is that alien beings visited our planet in the ancient past and that the archaeological record includes evidence of these visits. Typically, these claims make use of sites and artifacts that span thousands of years from cultures all over the globe and that pay little attention to their original context.

One of the most famous examples of such a claim comes from the Classic Maya city of Palenque. Ancient-alien theorists have argued that the carved relief found on the sarcophagus lid of K’inich Janaab’ Pakal, one of the city’s most influential rulers, represents a man flying a rocket ship. Yet if we compare this image to other examples of contemporaneous Maya art, we find that elements found in the image were commonly used in other carvings and that this image depicts the ruler falling into the underworld (Schele & Miller, 1986). Thus, the mystery is easily solved by placing the image in its context instead of by looking at the image in isolation.

Figure 3. Line drawing of the sarcophagus lid from the tomb of K’inich Janaab’ Pakal, Chiapas, Mexico. (Wikimedia Commons)

The story behind the claims of ancient alien visitors is a convoluted tale incorporating many colorful characters. The most influential person in this story is Erich von Däniken, who skyrocketed to global fame when his book Chariots of the Gods? (1968) became an international publishing phenomenon. Von Daniken wrote the book to raise curious questions about humanity’s ancient past, but it only hinted at possible answers to those questions (thus offering von Däniken a neat escape route whenever he was cornered on a particular detail). Despite this evasive writing strategy, the central theme of his book is clear; von Däniken advocates that our planet was visited by alien astronauts and that these beings influenced the development of our species, both culturally and biologically.

Today, most people are familiar with von Däniken’s claims through the History Channel’s show Ancient Aliens. One of the driving forces for the television show is co-executive producer Giorgio Tsoukalos, who frequently appears on the show. Tsoukalos, a protégé of von Däniken, proposed Ancient Aliens as a four-part homage to his mentor. After the tremendous success of the first series, which aired in 2010, the show was renewed and began to incorporate yet more claims about ancient aliens.

The popularity of von Däniken’s Chariots of the Gods? is relatively easy to understand when we consider that it was published in 1968 at the height of the Space Race. The public was never more interested in the stars above and the mysteries they might contain. Chariots of the Gods? brought the stars down to Earth, and it flew off the shelves. Yet we cannot explain the popularity of the Ancient Aliens television show in the same way as the original book; space is no longer quite so mysterious. To understand the popularity of the ancient aliens theory, we need to look at how this idea developed over time.

Von Däniken was not the first author to write about ancient alien contact. When writing Chariots of the Gods? he copied from earlier pseudoarchaeology authors so egregiously that he was sued for plagiarism. He relied in particular on Morning of the Magicians, by Louis Pauwels and Jacques Bergier (1960). Pauwels and Bergier, however, were more interested in esoteric spiritualism then in archaeology. In their book, they claimed that their understanding of ancient alien spirits came from an obscure occult book known as “The Book of Dzyan.” Specifically they claimed that “The Book of Dzyan speaks of ‘superior beings of dazzling aspect’ who abandoned the Earth, depriving the impure human race of its knowledge and effacing by disintegration all traces of their passage” (Pauwels & Bergier, 1960, pp. 154–155). Pauwels and Bergier interpreted these “superior beings” to be alien spirits who came to Earth to aid humanity’s development and then departed suddenly. Notably, von Däniken also references “The Book of Dzyan,” describing it as an ancient Tibetan text many thousands of years old.

The possible existence of an ancient Tibetan esoteric text is intriguing! But, we must ask, why don’t conventional historians and archaeologist make reference to “The Book of Dzyan? The oldest known references to “The Book of Dzyan” come from a modern esoteric book titled The Secret Doctrine, written by Helena Blavatsky (1888). Blavatsky was born in Ukraine to an aristocratic Russian family in 1831 and spent much of her youth traveling throughout Europe, absorbing its cultural and spiritual traditions. In the early 1870s, she emigrated to the United States, where she subsequently founded the Theosophical Society, a cornerstone of the present-day New Age spiritualism movement. The society’s goals were to investigate the “hidden mysteries of nature and the [psychic] powers latent in the individual” (Gomes, 2016, p. 250). The popularity of theosophy quickly grew as the technological advances of the industrial revolution led many people to seek new ways to understand their newly complex world.

The Secret Doctrine, in which Blavatsky explained her spiritual perspective, relied heavily on “The Book of Dzyan.” A large portion of The Secret Doctrine is taken up with commentaries on the seven stanzas of “The Book of Dzyan.” In these commentaries, Blavatsky wrote that alien spirits had been visiting our planet and influencing the development of humankind since our earliest days. In particular, she claimed that these alien forces led humanity out of Atlantis and Lemuria (another questionable lost continent) and became the earliest rulers of ancient Egypt, the Maya, and other civilizations around the world. The problem with Blavatsky’s treatment of this ancient text, however, is that no copy of “The Book of Dzyan” has ever been found. Blavatsky said that she gained access to the book through her psychic abilities. Thus, belief in “The Book of Dzyan” and Blavatsky’s commentaries come down to an act of spiritual faith, not history or archaeology.

The History Channel’s Ancient Aliens program speaks of these extraterrestrials as physical beings who flew UFOs, not spiritual apparitions. We might ask, then, how this work of spiritualism came to serve as a significant source in Morning of the Magicians and in turn in von Däniken’s work. For the answer to this question, we are indebted to the research Jason Colavito did for his book The Cult of Alien Gods (2005). Colavito demonstrates a connection between ancient alien theorists, “The Book of Dzyan,” and the famed pulp fiction horror writer H. P. Lovecraft. To make his stories more realistic and thus more frightening, Lovecraft regularly incorporated elements from the real world. In particular, he incorporated theosophical beliefs into his stories about fictional occult mysteries. Thus, we find the following in his short story “The Diary of Alonzo Typer”:

The genesis of the world, and of previous worlds, unfolded itself before my eyes, I learned of the city of Shamballa, built by the Lemurians fifty million years ago, yet inviolate still behind its wall of psychic force in the eastern desert. I learned of the Book of Dzyan, whose first six chapters antedate the Earth, and which was old when the lords of Venus came through space in their ships to civilize our planet.

It should be noted that Lovecraft was not a believer in the occult or in ancient aliens, for that matter. Lovecraft incorporated these elements into his stories as a deliberately ironic commentary on what he saw as the absurd things people would believe (Poole, 2016). Nevertheless, some individuals have believed that Lovecraft was writing truth in the only way that he could, by disguising it as fiction. Among this group were Pauwels and Bergier, the authors of Morning of the Magicians. As Colavito uncovered, Pauwels and Bergier were directly responsible for the translation and publication of Lovecraft’s work in France. They also went on to edit a journal devoted in equal parts to spiritualism and Lovecraft, blurring the lines between truth and fiction. Thus, we find a direct chain of thought connecting Blavatsky’s alien spirits and von Däniken’s alien astronauts recorded by the non-existent “Book of Dzyan.”

The story behind the concept of ancient alien contact is not one of archaeological evidence; it is a story of a counterculture movement whose members sought to find their own path by denying mainstream beliefs. Blavatsky’s Theosophical Society attracted members who felt lost in the newly industrialized world of the 19th century, just as today the television show Ancient Aliens attracts viewers who reject the academic establishment and its elite discourse. Truth be told, archaeologists in the past have done a poor job of communicating the excitement of their discoveries. As a result, many members of the public have turned to what they perceive as more exciting narratives of ancient alien visitors. For this reason, and others, archaeologists today pay careful attention to the field of public archaeology (you can read more in the Public Outreach and Archaeology chapter).

The Importance of Understanding Pseudoarchaeology

Claims that the massive walls of the Inka fortress at Saksaywaman were the work of Atlanteans or ancient alien visitors are based on the assertion that the walls look too complicated for them to have been made by Indigenous Inka stonemasons. Yet a review of the archaeological context shows that the Inka regularly and repeatedly built walls of similar composition. The success of pseudoarchaeology is not rooted in the persuasiveness of its evidence but in a desire for those claims to be true despite the evidence. The inhabitants of Kensington, Minnesota, want the runestone to be an authentic Viking artifact because it brings great pride of place to Kensington and its modern Nordic descendants. Similarly, pseudoarchaeologists who visit Saksaywaman want to see the glories of a bygone golden age or the mysteries of a denied history in the giant walls before them.

Yet we do not need Atlantis or aliens to accomplish this. The walls of Saksaywaman actually represent a bygone golden age and a denied history. The Inka Empire was a vast and powerful state that ruled over the Andean mountains of South America. The citizens of the empire created great works of art and architecture, built vast cities, and even made historical records using an intricate system of knots and string (Kolata, 2013). Western historians have long claimed that the Inka Empire fell to the guns and steel swords of Francisco Pizarro and a few hundred Spanish soldiers, but that is far from what really happened.

Years before Pizarro landed on the coast of Peru, the entire region experienced a deadly wave of epidemic disease. The earliest European explorers brought both measles and smallpox to the Americas, where populations had no inherited resistance to them. As the epidemic spread, both the Inka emperor and his chosen successor perished and the empire descended into civil war. When Pizarro arrived on the shores of Peru, it was after years of infighting there. Pizarro found a once-great empire decimated by war and epidemic disease. Pizarro did not so much conquer the Inka Empire as witness its last dying breath. With the help of archaeological research, the achievements of the Inka Empire and its people have been slowly pieced back together, recovering a legacy of human achievement that had been all but lost. Yet even as those achievements are recovered, they are once again threatened as pseudoarchaeological claims attempt to give credit for the walls of Saksaywaman to Atlanteans or alien visitors. Pseudoarchaeology represents a direct threat to archaeological heritage because it attempts to deny the remarkable achievements of humanity. In addition, a preponderance of pseudoarchaeological claims attempt to specifically deny the achievements of Indigenous peoples, thus continuing to propagate colonial racial prejudice (Halmhofer, 2021). Because of this, we should not simply dismiss claims of ancient alien contact or Atlantean empires as preposterous but should actively oppose them and speak out against them.

Pseudoarchaeology not only represents a threat to our collective heritage, it also represents a threat to our own skills as critical thinkers and observers of the world around us. The past presents real puzzles, all of which deserve to be examined, poked, and prodded from all directions. Archaeology is in desperate need of new thinkers who have not been steeped in decades of established tradition, but we cannot allow ourselves to be beguiled by the glamour of a pseudoarchaeological epistemology where we pick and choose the points of data that interest us while ignoring everything else. If we want to mitigate the effects of pseudoarchaeology, we need to understand why people are attracted to these claims. Only then can we begin to save the legacy of the stonemasons who built the walls of Saksaywaman.

Further Exploration

• Anderson, D.S. (2024). Atlantis: Unraveling a folkloresque tapestry. In J. A. Tobert & M. D. Foster (Eds.), Mobius media: Popular culture, folklore, and the folkloresque. Utah State University Press.
• Card, J. J., & Anderson, D. S. (Eds.). (2016). Lost city, found pyramid: Understanding alternative archaeologies and pseudoscientific practices. University of Alabama Press.
• Colavito, J. (2005). The cult of alien gods: H. P. Lovecraft and extraterrestrial pop culture. Prometheus Books.
• Feder, K. L. (2019). Frauds, myths, and mysteries: Science and pseudoscience in archaeology (10th ed.). Oxford University Press.
• Halmhofer, S. (2021). Did aliens build the pyramids? And other racist theories. https://www.sapiens.org/archaeology/pseudoarchaeology-racism/

Discussion Questions

1. How does a pseudoarchaeology epistemology differ from an archaeological epistemology?
2. In your opinion, why do pseudoarchaeological claims thrive on television shows and in infotainment documentaries?
3. What influences caused people to enthusiastically embrace the idea of Atlantis as a real place?
4. How did theosophical spiritual claims become part of belief in ancient alien contact?

About the Author

David S. Anderson received his PhD in Anthropology from Tulane University with a concentration on the archaeology of the ancient Maya. His fieldwork has focused on studying the development of Maya sociopolitical complexity and cultural institutions during the Preclassic period. This work has involved investigating the origins and growth of political power in a pre-state environment as well as a critical examination of the role the Maya ballgame played in the development of community identity. When public interest grew around the Maya calendar in 2012, Anderson became increasingly involved in speaking out against false claims in archaeology. Today, his work examines the public perception of archaeology outside academia by studying how the ancient world is depicted in pop culture and how popular audiences conceive of archaeology and archaeologists.

References

Blavatsky, H. (1888). The secret doctrine: The synthesis of science, religion, and philosophy. The Theosophical Publishing Company.

Chapman University. (2018, October 16). Paranormal America 2018: Chapman University survey of American fears. https://blogs.chapman.edu/wilkinson/2018/10/16/paranormal-america-2018/

Colavito, J. (2005). The cult of alien gods: H. P. Lovecraft and extraterrestrial pop culture. Prometheus Books.

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1. This chapter uses the preferred Quechua spellings "Inka" and "Saksaywaman" instead of the conventional Spanish spellings "Inca" and "Sacsayhuamán".