[1][2][3] These pseudoscientific interpretations involve the use of artifacts, sites or materials to construct scientifically insubstantial theories to strengthen the pseudoarchaeologists' claims.
Others instead argue there were human societies in the ancient period which were significantly technologically advanced, such as Atlantis, and this idea has been propagated by some people such as Graham Hancock in his publication Fingerprints of the Gods (1995).
Academic archaeologists have often criticised pseudoarchaeology, with one of the major critics, John R. Cole, characterising it as relying on "sensationalism, misuse of logic and evidence, misunderstanding of scientific method, and internal contradictions in their arguments".
[9] During the 2000s, the term "alternative archaeology" began to be instead applied by academics like Tim Sebastion (2001),[10] Robert J. Wallis (2003),[11] Cornelius Holtorf (2006),[12] and Gabriel Moshenka (2008).
[13] Garrett F. Fagan and Kenneth Feder (2006) however claimed this term was only chosen because it "imparts a warmer, fuzzier feel" that "appeals to our higher ideals and progressive inclinations".
Practitioners of pseudoarchaeology often criticise academic archaeologists and established scientific methods, claiming that conventional science has ignored critical evidence.
He then identified three main commonalities of pseudeoarchaeological theories: the unscientific nature of its method and evidence, its history of providing "simple, compact answers to complex, difficult issues", and its tendency to present itself as being persecuted by the archaeological establishment, accompanied by an ambivalent attitude towards the scientific ethos of the Enlightenment.
Instead of testing evidence to see what hypotheses it satisfies best, pseudoarchaeologists force the archaeological data to fit a "favored conclusion" that is often arrived at through hunches, intuition, or religious or nationalist dogma.
[31] For instance, pseudoarchaeologist Immanuel Velikovsky claimed that the myths of migrations and war gods in the Central American Aztec civilisation represented a cosmic catastrophe that occurred during the 7th and 8th centuries BCE.
On a more sinister note: now this "church of science" has formed a network of watchdog organisations such as CSICOP and The Skeptical Society [sic] (to name but a few) in order to act as the gatekeepers of the truth (as they see it), ready to come down like the proverbial ton of bricks on all those whom they perceive as "frauds", "charlatans", and "pseudo-scientists"—in short, heretics.
[5][6][21] They often use language that disparages academics and dismisses them as being unadventurous, spending all their time in dusty libraries and refusing to challenge the orthodoxies of the establishment lest they lose their jobs.
In some more extreme examples, pseudoarchaeologists have accused academic archaeologists of being members of a widespread conspiracy to hide the truth about history from the public.
[34] The prominent English archaeologist Colin Renfrew admitted that the archaeological establishment was often "set in its ways and resistant to radical new ideas" but that this was not the reason why pseudoarchaeological theories were rejected by academics.
[35] Garrett G. Fagan expanded on this, noting how in the academic archaeological community, "New evidence or arguments have to be thoroughly scrutinised to secure their validity ... and longstanding, well-entrenched positions will take considerable effort and particularly compelling data to overturn."
[36] At times, they quote historical, and in most cases dead academics to strengthen their arguments; for instance prominent pseudoarchaeologist Graham Hancock, in his seminal Fingerprints of the Gods (1995), repeatedly notes that the eminent physicist Albert Einstein once commented positively on the pole shift hypothesis, a theory that has been abandoned by the academic community but which Hancock endorses.
[38] Prominent academic archaeologist Colin Renfrew stated his opinion that it was appalling that pseudoarchaeologists treated archaeological evidence in such a "frivolous and self-serving way", something he believed trivialised the "serious matter" of the study of human origins.
[39] Academics like John R. Cole,[5] Garrett G. Fagan and Kenneth L. Feder[2] have argued that pseudoarchaeological interpretations of the past were based upon sensationalism, self-contradiction, fallacious logic, manufactured or misinterpreted evidence, quotes taken out of context and incorrect information.
Fagan was particularly scathing of television shows that presented pseudoarchaeological theories to the general public, believing that they did so because of the difficulties in making academic archaeological ideas comprehensible and interesting to the average viewer.
[40] Renfrew however believed that those television executives commissioning these documentaries knew that they were erroneous, and that they had allowed them to be made and broadcast simply for the hope of "short-term financial gain".
Speaking from their own experiences, they thought that attempted dialogues just became "slanging matches in which the expertise and motives of the critic become the main focus of attention.
He noted that they included those "who openly admitted to not having read a word written by a trained Egyptologist" but who at the same time "were pronouncing how academic Egyptology was all wrong, even sinister.
[47] He also noted that certain archaeological scholars, like William Stukeley (1687–1765), Margaret Murray (1863–1963) and Marija Gimbutas (1921–1994) were formerly considered to be eminent by both academic and alternative archaeologists.
[48] Fagan and Feder have responded to Holtorf's statements in detail, asserting that such a dialogue is no more possible than is one between evolutionary biologists and creationists or between astronomers and astrologers: one is scientific, the other is anti-scientific.
However, questions also included issues such as, King Tut's tomb actually killed people upon discovery, and there is good evidence for the existence of Atlantis.
[50] During the mid-2nd century, those exposed by Lucian's sarcastic essay "Alexander the false prophet" prepared an archaeological "find" in Chalcedon to prepare a public for the supposed oracle they planned to establish at Abonoteichus in Paphlagonia (Pearse, 2001[51]): [I]n the temple of Apollo, which is the most ancient in Chalcedon, they buried bronze tablets which said that very soon Asclepius, with his father Apollo, would move to Pontus and take up his residence at Abonoteichus.
[52] According to archaeologist John Hoopes, writing for the magazine of the Society for American Archaeology, "Pseudoarchaeology actively promotes myths that are routinely used in the service of white supremacy, racialized nationalism, colonialism, and the dispossession and oppression of indigenous peoples.
[60] One belief originally published by Charles Piazzi Smyth in 1864 is that the Great Pyramid was not built by humans for the pharaoh Khufu, but was so beautiful that it could it have been crafted only by the hand of God.
However, ancient historian Garrett Fagan criticized Schoch's theory on the grounds that it demonstrated ignorance of relevant facts and that it did not explain variations in appearance or how various civilizations' pyramids were built.
Scott Creighton claims that knowledge of a coming deluge (which he refers to as "Thoth's Flood") generated the idea of building pyramids as recovery vaults from which civilization could rebuild.
Some of these include stone carvings in Tikal that show the earliest stories of Sihyaj Chan Kʼawiil II and materials recovered from Chichen Itza.