Following Up on the Brandenburg Stone

2/18/2013

Last night, America Unearthed host Scott Wolter questioned my integrity as a critic and my honesty as a reporter, so unfortunately that means another day spent discussing his show. Perhaps that’s all part of the plan. Anyway, Wolter accused me of misrepresenting his position on the Brandenburg Stone, an alleged Welsh carving found in Kentucky in 1912. I wrote in my review of S01E09 “Motive for Murder” that Wolter had concluded after an examination that the stone was carved prior to 1492.

In your haste to try and discredit me, you are getting careless. If you had listened carefully you would have heard me say the weathering of the Brandenburg Stone COULD pre-date Columbus. In the next sentence, I said because the provenance of the artifact was unknown, and therefore the weathering environment it was exposed to is unknown, we can not say how old the inscription is. You obviously thought you heard something different, but I invite you suffer through the episode one more time to check the facts.

Therefore, in the interest of scrupulous accuracy, I transcribe below Wolter’s discussion of the Brandenburg Stone, proffered in three separate segments of the episode:

Wolter: This is the first time I’ve ever looked at this stone. These are limestones, probably oolitic limestone. If you look very closely, you’ll see what looks like little sand grains. They’re actually sand of limestone, and they’re called oolites. When I look down into the grooves, I can see some of those ooids, so that’s an indication of weathering. Based on everything I’ve seen, we’re not lookin’ at a hoax here. Does anybody know what this inscription says? [Discussion of the content of the “Welsh” message.] This could actually call into question the whole legitimacy of the United States!

[commercial break followed by recapitulation of previous segment]

Wolter (V.O.): I examined this clue and saw evidence of weathering that takes (emphasis) a long time. But now, I need to see where it came from, a place called Paradise Bottom.

[Wolter travels to Paradise Bottom to match the type of rock, not its weathering pattern, and the segment shows him examining rocks. He interviews a man at the quarry who asserts that the Welsh arrived in the sixth century CE, and that the stone may be from this period.]

Wolter (on phone): I’ve had a chance to look at the Brandenburg Stone, and it’s very interesting. It does show some evidence of weathering.

[commercial break]

Wolter (V.O.): My analysis of the stone’s weathering suggests it could have been carved before 1492, but there is no way to get a more precise date because it was taken out of its original environment, and its provenance isn’t clear.

I hope you can see how I concluded that Wolter thought the stone was carved before 1492. First, he concluded that the stone was not “a hoax” (therefore genuinely ancient). Second, he spoke with an “expert” who claimed that the Welsh occupation of America occurred in the 500s CE, which Wolter does not contradict. Third, he repeats that the weathering took a long time, emphasizing the word long. Finally, he states that the rock “could have been carved before 1492,” with the conjunction “but” used to link that thought to the second, that there was no way to “more precise.” The use of the term “more precise” implies that it refers to “before 1492” as the antecedent, so any more precise date would be before 1492. Therefore, I had no choice but to conclude from the grammar of the sentence that Wolter believed that 1492 was the terminus ante quem for the stone’s carving. The fact that the only other date offered for it was in the sixth century CE seemed to establish a terminus post quem, meaning that until the final segment of the show, the stone’s proposed date was sometime between c. 550 CE and 1492.

This is why we do not do science by television. It requires more than a single sentence to convey the full range of possibility and all the qualifications needed in presenting a conclusion.

As we know, the stone was actually carved much, much later. It is written in Coelbren y Beirdd, a hoax Welsh alphabet created in Wales in 1791 by Edward Williams (Iolo Morganwg), but not widely popularized outside of scholarly circles in Wales until years later when his son Taliesin began publishing his father’s works in 1826. The alphabet was widely published in the 1830s and 1840s, and whoever forged the Brandenburg Stone (it was not actually either Williams, who were never in Kentucky) almost certainly used such publications, possibly Taliesin Williams’s widely-read book about the alphabet, in forging the stone. The younger Williams’s popular book was published to scholarly acclaim in 1840 (having won a prestigious prize two years before) and the alphabet was exposed as a hoax in 1893 (though suspicions had been raised earlier, until Taliesin successfully combated them), which makes it much more likely that the stone was actually carved between 1840 and 1912, though a date as early as 1792 cannot be excluded. In the United States, libraries had dozens of different volumes on Coelbren y Beirdd, including the Iolo Manuscripts (1848), Bardaas (1862 and 1874), etc., but I am not able to find evidence that the alphabet itself would have been widely available in rural America prior to Taliesin’s book, though it is possible that some of Edward’s specialist publications imported from Britain were available in some places. After 1862, the largest collection of the Williams forgeries was in print and the alphabet was at the height of its popularity. Thus, the latter nineteenth or early twentieth century seems the best candidate for the time of forgery. America Unearthed is a bit deceptive on this point in an attempt to make the stone seem as old as possible.

Given this, even if we accept everything Wolter now claims as true, he still can’t tell the difference between a stone that was carved a scant century ago and one that is 200, 500, or 1500 years old.

50 Comments

Joseph Craven

2/18/2013 04:01:10 am

Weasel words are still weasel worlds. I'm not a scientist or anything, but that he even made the statement it could be authentic without making a rigorous effort to confirm it shows a pretty clear bias.

B L

2/18/2013 04:32:59 am

I'm with Joseph Craven. I watched that segment and thought Wolter was an historical and archeological superman. Even in the high-tech time we live in it would take a prestigious university lab weeks to declare what Wolter was able to see after inspecting the stone for a few seconds. Remarkable....or, maybe just B.S.

Robert

2/18/2013 07:11:21 am

So-- is there a point to it all? (America Unearthed) Or is it just an attempt at filling television channels with stuff people will watch? It seems to me like America Unearthed is some kind of attempt to discredit other historical accounts of North America, but I am not imaginitive enough to see why?! The show makes horrible leaps in logic when presenting "evidence" and narrative, while never even presenting any reason to believe in the tchnological methods of examination or analysis that Mr. Wolter pursues with the artifacts presented.

The funny thing is, the above story of the Brandenburg Stone is also actually interesting as a hoax alphabet started in 1792 by a known personality!

Jason Colavito link

2/18/2013 07:14:43 am

That's the tragedy of it all: The real story of how and why so many people were busy faking the past is fascinating, but TV executives and book publishers alike believe that the only thing audiences want is pseudoscientific mystery mongering, particularly if it has a comforting Eurocentric message. I could get you a dozen mass market publishers today who will jump at a book saying white people colonized prehistoric America, and exactly zero interested in the actual story of how early Americans tried to invent a fake history for America.

Debra Norris

12/17/2018 01:04:21 am

Actually I have never until I just now am visiting your site ever heard that the Welsh script you speak of that is used on the BRANDENBURG STONE is a phoney made up fraudlent welsh dialect dating back only to the early 1800s.I have always heard just the opposite.Besides you do realize as recently as a couple years ago 3 lingistic specialists 2 from WALES Cardiff University studied it .And all 3 declared ii to be authenic dialect &script.So Since they are professors/professionals in tgeur field 2 specializing in ancient welsh dualects&scripts . I am sure they would have been well aware of this Williams ,whether its a recently made up language &writing.But they didn't so I tend to believe them more then you on this.As far as Scott Wolter is concerned I think he probably as never been the same since he worked on the 911 site it was very stressfull ,many suffered mental &physical health issues after participating in the long investigation & clearing it /clean up of it.I think he probably like many involved suffers from the prolong stress possibly even PTSD among other things.As far as his show goes well it seemed more to me the few times I watched it to be more in support of the Book of mormon &its less then reality based.Though Scott Wolter claims not to be a mormon or be funded by or affilated with the Mormon LDS Churchor BYU he has alot of fans from that sect.Which throws alot of doubt on anything he has to say in my opinion.But I do believe in the BRANDENBURG STONE 's authencity as the area around that part of Kentucky ,southern Indiana has been well known by locals has Prince Madoc country since White settler's furst came there as told by the lical native Americans many still claim they are Welsh Indians ..And many other artifacts &such have been found for the past 2+centuries there .Such as what's called The Devil's Backbone ruins in Charlestown ,Indiana,Arifacts ,ruins in &around the former Rose Island amusement park on the Indiana side of the river across from Loiusville ,Kentucky ,many other things.So until you or someone can post absolute postive proof that totally discredits all of this WELSH prehistory of the area I have to trust all the many others over YOU &the very few who try to discredit ,the Welsh influence &the BRANDENBURG STONE.Sincerely Debra Norris

Janiece Stamper

2/18/2013 07:47:34 am

In my humble opinion, its not faking a history, its questioning what some believe to be set in stone, literally.
Reading accounts of what the Spanish encountered when going across the US does reveal a different palette of history. They write of finding an extremely vibrant civilization up and down the Mississippi, and we all know some of the stories of the mounds, but when settlers encounter them hundreds of years later they were decimated.
How would they be able to account for this discrepancy? The early science could not, they did not have the ability to do this, and it seems to have set in stone a belief that their was no pre-Columbian contact and I find that absolutely counter-intuitive, especially since Columbus never actually 'landed' on what we call the American continent.
There also seems to be a interesting cut and paste feel to some of the show, which I'm not comfortable with, but that is why its called 'Entertainment'. I have hopes they will go more for verification than interesting cuts/commercial/back to the conversation.
I think there are enough oddities on this magnificent continent to more than fill a hour show.
Janiece

Varika

2/18/2013 08:21:19 am

Janeice, when you create an artifact deliberately in order to fool people into believing what you want them to believe, that is, indeed, faking history.

On the other hand, you have done in your post what many alternative theorists seem to do, which is to say put together random disconnected factoids with bits of myth and some outright falsehoods (not lies, but things that are nonetheless untrue), to come up with a conclusion that is shaky at best.

1. The Spanish did, indeed, write of encountering vibrant civilizations in South America. As part of a campaign of conquest. This means warfare and decimating populations by force of arms, as well as the secondary consequences of introducing disease.

2. Contrary to what Americans often seem to believe, colonization of the Louisiana Territory didn't wait for the fledgling United States to purchase the land. It was not "hundreds of years later" that these peoples were encountered again, though it was a fair number of years. However, have you seen pictures of New Orleans, several years after Katrina hit? It was still trashed more than five years later. Rebuilding takes a long time, even when resources are poured into rebuilding immediately, as was done for the Gulf Coast area. When resources aren't poured in from outside sources, and your own people are no longer numerous enough to gather resources, it may not happen at all.

3. European scientists of the time had a vested interest in finding the local peoples to be NOT civilized, as that supported policies involving the removal of indigenous populations from lands the Europeans wanted, so even if a society showed a high level of sophistication--for instance, the Iroquois Nations, the Cherokee, or the Navajo--they were still going to be deemed 'savages' as quickly as possible, so the lands could be claimed for Europeans who would, presumably, make better use of them than the natives did.

3. Even without this so-called 'discrepancy' explained, how does this in ANY WAY relate to pre-Columbian contact with Europe? Are you arguing that indigenous cultures had to be propped up by mysterious European covert operatives, who fled when the Spaniards arrived, and then the poor brown people lost any ability to think or do for themselves? Because if so, I take issue with your mile-thick racism. If you are arguing that Europeans couldn't explain why this 'discrepancy' happened, so they made something up, you....clearly missed part of the show, given that purportedly, Lewis was LOOKING for pre-Columbian traces of Welsh (Europeans) in the Americas at the behest of the President of the United States. This clearly indicates that the concept that there was no pre-Columbian contact was never set in stone at all.

4. What's counter-intuitive about the concept, "We have found no credible traces of European contact in that area before the era of European colonialism, which began when Columbus brought back news of this trade route, and therefore we simply cannot say there was contact before Columbus?" (Yes. It's called "pre-Columbian" as a shortcut for "after Columbus brought news back TO EUROPE to spark European exploration and colonization of the American continents." That's a bit much to type out or say every time you want to talk about the subject, so there's a nickname for it.)

5. You are absolutely right that "there are enough odditites on this magnificent continent to more than fill a(n) hour show." It would just be interesting if the show covered REAL history, like discussing relationships between Native American nations in the Southwest, trade routs across the pre-Columbian country, or the hows and whys of artifact forgery in Victorian America. That's part of our history, too, and for one, I find it fascinating!

2/18/2013 09:23:30 am

All excellent points. I also find the story behind Victorian artifact hoaxing more interesting than the hoaxes themselves.

Christopher Randolph

2/18/2013 05:14:24 pm

In 1498, on the third voyage, Columbus did land in South America proper. I'm not sure if you meant "mainland" or "North America" when you stated he didn't land "on what we call the American continent."

2/18/2013 05:52:47 pm

In 1898, the map shows he went around the South American Continent, but did not land on the American continent as we know it, he didn't even get as far as Central America.
If you look at the map of the voyage if doesn't show a landing, and mentions that he went as far as the Orinoco River, but never claims he was ever set foot on the land, just that he explored the waterways.
"From August 4 through August 12, 1498, he explored the Gulf of Paria which separates Trinidad from mainland Venezuela. He then explored the mainland of South America, including the Orinoco River. He also sailed to the islands of Chacachacare and Margarita Island and sighted and named islands Bella Forma (Tobago) and Concepcion (Grenada). He described the new lands as belonging to a previously unknown new continent, but he pictured it hanging from China, bulging out to make the earth pear-shaped".
Janiece

2/18/2013 06:52:04 pm

You mean didn't land in North America? That's correct. But apparently he did actually land in what's now Venezuela, including setting foot, however briefly, on the mainland. (And that's the other "American continent" as we know it...) Given the size of the Orinoco River he even seemed to realize at the time that he must have landed on a much larger land mass than the islands he had been landing on to that point.

2/18/2013 09:29:01 am

1. I made no depute of the mechanisms that caused the calamity, just a notice of the decline. The Spanish would rather fight there way through most things than conquest through acceptance, it was a European mind set. By the time WE were actively exploring further westward, disease can be credited to most of the decline, but not all. And since the Lewis and Clark expedition was in 1804-1806 and the Spanish beat their way through the (later US) in early to mid 1600's, that is actually a couple hundred years. I made no claim of the unmentioned contact, including the 'Swedes' who came before William Penn and had no problems with the natives.
2. Louisiana was colonized rather early by the French, and long before it was purchased. I didn't mention any one particular area on purpose, the entire Mississippi was cultivated long before Columbus.
3. European and American scientists had vested interests in an un-civilized population, that combined with 'Manifest Destiny' helped to create the travesty called "Indian removal".

3. Yes, you had 2 #3's. I make no claim that the native people needed any kind of propping up, my belief is that many other peoples came to the America's in the past over long periods of time and that the natives had no problems with them, which would support partly why they did not view the Spanish as an enemy.

My mile thick racism? That is amusing, rather caustic, but amusing and since many of my ancestors were on the 'Trail of Tears,' and there is a city in Oklahoma named for my Grandmothers family, you are wrong in that respect.

You also have a problem with counting, I'm sure its an oversight.

4. (which if you could count would be 5) What I believe is 'counter intuitive' is the belief that they created an amazing civilization in a vacuum. And the difference between ''credible and credited" could fill a large stadium. My mention of the term pre-Columbian is a pun, since he never actually stepped foot on the continent, but I'm sure you just missed that.

5/6, for those that count. I agree, and stated that in other posts. Victorian forgery, is a well accepted truth, but not all things found at that time and categorized as such should still be dismissed as that. I'm glad you find that fascinating, it should keep you quite busy.
Janiece,

2/18/2013 09:55:40 am

I want to jump in and please ask posters to avoid accusing one another of racism. We don't know what's in anyone's hearts, and there is a difference between being racist and suggesting that particular theories have been used to justify racial beliefs.

2/18/2013 10:21:25 am

It was a surprising response.
Janiece

2/18/2013 01:11:47 pm

My apologies, I was not in fact attempting to accuse you of racism. I should not have phrased my response in that way. In fact, when I was typing up that proposal, my thoughts were that I did not in fact believe you would actually, in these modern times, believe such an outlandish proposal. And, you have said, you do not. Therefore we may leave as settled that you are not racist and that I do not believe you to be racist.

In addition, the two number 3s was, in fact, a typo, due to the fact that I didn't type my response in MS Word but here, in the comments box, and could not SEE the entire response at once. Typos do happen, and they don't necessarily indicate that someone can't count, you know.

To respond to the content of your arguments 1-3 (the first): we do seem to be in agreement on these parts, according to your responses.

To respond to your argument #3 (the second): there is no reason to automatically assume people you have never met before are an enemy, particularly when you don't recognize their weapons AS weapons. You generally give them a chance to prove themselves first. I find the fact that the native peoples did this to be far more indicitive of a LACK of pre-Columbian European contact, because the history of Europe is generally more a history of warfare and hostility than it is of making nice with the other children. Why would the behavior of these peoples change so drastically in the Americas from in Europe? Why would the native people in the Americas have FAILED to have problems with Europeans? They certainly took enough issue with other American peoples for some of the same things Europeans were doing across the ocean, and they certainly did when Europeans did the same things later.

To point #4 (5): Your mistake here, I think, is attributing one overriding culture to everyone in the Americas at all times. There was never a vacuum. (In your own words, by the way, "AN amazing culture," emphasis added. "An" is singular. If you meant "amazing civilizations," then you should have said it in those words instead.) All those different cultures were rubbing against one another and having their own arms races and intermarriages and empires and not-so-empires. Furthermore, at one time on this planet there were no civilizations at all. How did the first one arise, if it can't happen "in a vacuum?" Someone had to get it started--and if one group can do it, another group can, too.

The difference between "credible" and "credited" is indeed a vast, but quite vital gap. Anyone can "credit" something. Forgers are masters of this, crediting their work to....whoever they need to for their lie to be believed. The Brandenburg Stone is credited to the Welsh. The Dare stones are credited to Rachel Dare. Ancient aliens are credited with building everything on the planet before fifty years ago, including humanity itself. That doesn't make any of it credible. In science, you can't base your hypotheses on evidence that isn't credible. Anything you have that can't be confirmed must be disregarded until it CAN be confirmed. That's the basis of the phrase "credible evidence."

And no, I still don't get the "pun" in pre-Columbian, nor do I understand just what his setting foot on the continent has to do with it. Please elucidate.

Finally point #5 (6): I agree that every purported artifact should be evaluated with as unbiased a view as possible. However, the Brandenburg Stone, which was the specific "artifact" discussed in this episode, used an alphabet specifically created to hoax people, which means that the person who created the stone specifically intended to hoax people. It can, in fact, be safely dismissed. Those purported artifacts that have not been conclusively proven to be forgeries should of course still be undergoing rigorous examination.

Let's also clear something else up: I LOVE the idea of pre-Columbian contact as an idea. I LOVE the thought of being able to say, "Dude, seriously, people before the European Renaissance weren't idiots and not only could have but DID do things that weren't done again for centuries or millennia, and not only that, but people OTHER than Europeans did them!" In fact, I DO say that--when there is PROOF. I was amazed and thrilled when I read about the European mummies in China from 1800 BCE. I love that it proves that people travelled farther at that time than commonly credited, and that there was probably contact between East and West far in advance of Marco Polo. But that find has been authenticated via DNA, textile evidence, etc. If anyone is able to produce evidence with the same level of authenticity and credibility as the Tarim mummies for pre-Columbian contact between the Americas and Europe, I will be equally thrilled--like I was when I found out about L'Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland, which is a CREDIBLE, authenticated, widely-accepted evidence of a pre-Columbian European contact in the Americas.

But even setting aside tha

2/18/2013 01:13:46 pm

Last sentence got cut off.

But even setting aside that L'Anse aux Meadows is the southernmost credible evidence of pre-Columbian contact, its date of c. 1000 BC still puts it far, far too late to have influenced the rise of, say, Incan civilization or Mayan civilization.

2/18/2013 01:56:35 pm

I was not offended, more amused that my 'little' comment sent you into overdrive. And the numbering thing, I was teasing you... take a minute, I'm not without humor and hope that will not be a problem here.
I find irony everywhere, and calling it pre-Columbian amuses me, its nothing to get excited about, it just does. Because like so many topics here, there is irony to be found.
I find that your statement of 'I find the fact that the native peoples did this to be far more indicative of a LACK of pre-Columbian European contact' to not resonate with me, its not personal, but my research does not support that.
Don't presume to check my grammar, and I won't tease you about counting. I do believe that there was 'an amazing culture' going on in the America's. I believe that while they may have been separate, they also contained much in common.
One unfortunate thing is that while racing across the west to find as much gold as they could, many also raced to find and name every fish, tree, bush, rock, stream, etc. And while this has value, it can also create misidentification or even the possible setting aside of some evidence that would have been interpreted differently at a later time or different context.
Janiece

Henry Hyde

2/18/2013 04:19:18 pm

Gee, Janiece, you're so clever. Finding irony everywhere. Not being offended of course because that would be beneath you. Just teasing. Boy, you've just got it over everybody on this site.

2/18/2013 05:27:38 pm

It so happens I live exactly in the area of Philadelphia the Swedes who settled in what's now known as Pennsylvania lived in. They called the area Wicoca (varied spellings) which I believe is derived from Lenape. I can walk to a Swedish consulate or to an unusually impressive Swedish-American museum. You might be interested to know that the Dutch were here before the Quakers arrived too, hence the redundantly-titled Schuylkill River.

The Swedes didn't present many problems to the Lenape largely because there weren't many of them at all. For the first few decades of English colonization people showed up at about the pace of 1000 per year, and by the time William Penn died the push west and Lenape removal was in full swing.

2/18/2013 06:13:10 pm

Yes, the Swedes were here first and actually helped Penn's group arrive. My ancestor was the 1st barber and surgeon in the state of Delaware, I have several books chronically their hardships including the imprisonment of my ancestor and their flight to leave Europe and the shipwreck he survived but his small family didn't.
{My ggGrandfather was born in Philadelphia}.
Once he settled in Deleware he took a new wife and they did well. Many even becoming Quakers, but not my branch in particular. That was in the mid 1600's. They have been here since.
Janiece

2/18/2013 09:30:17 am

Something's been bothering me about the anti-academic pose by these sorts of programs lately, and I think it has something to do with the scientific method. The alternative history stance is that science is based on ideology, not method -- or at least an ideology inflects methodology. The same is definitely true about alternative history; and ideology (history is wrong and a conspiracy!) inflects methodology.

If you're from an academic background, especially if you've done any graduate work, you understand that 95% of the time methodology actually frames ideology, not the other way around. Evidence is gathered, evaluated, opened for review, challenges to evidence are either responded to or accepted, and a claim or thesis or determination is posited based on that process. Hence when academics see ideology inflecting methodology, it tends to be dismissed in the same way that, say, a doctor might dismiss herbal medicine -- it's just not on the doctor's radar. The doctor may not have anything against herbal medicine per se, but unless and until an herbal medicine goes through the same testing methods as other medicines to prove if it's efficacious, that medicine's just not really on the map of concerns.

Alternative history shows would be much more satisfying for some of us if the methodology was demonstrated and offered up for review and scrutiny -- especially if that review can be responded to. I've seen one such episode on the UK version of National Geographic's Ancient X-Files, the one where they examined Semir Osmanagic's claims of ancient Bosnian pyramids. Nat Geo sent two scientists, a geologist and an archaeologist (I think) to explore the area and examine Osmanagic's claims and methods. They came up empty and found nothing out of the ordinary, except for some creative ways of interpreting natural phenomena and some questionable excavation techniques that were making their tunnels ripe for a cave-in.

But then they presented their findings to Osmanagic and offered him a chance to respond. He didn't have much, and they pretty much ended deciding to agree to disagree. But the important part was the process, and the way the production opened up the claims and questions for audience evaluation. That's not something that happens on most alternative history programming, where ideology is foregrounded over process and the audience response is primed by the production. Every America Unearthed episode starts with the declaration that history is wrong, and often frames Wolter as a rogue who's challenging some system that's out to get him. That inflects everything else done in the show. What kind of show would it be if it began by asking IF history as we know it COULD be wrong, and then presents the claims, evidence, challenges, and responses? Because based on the latest episode, history was not wrong, the show was.

I would love to see Kenny Feder's take on this show.

2/18/2013 10:00:10 am

Great points. I think we're seeing America's historical anti-intellectualism, the paranoid streak in American discourse, and a popular form of postmodernism all rolled together. The experts, they say, are hiding things; ideology governs inquiry, and how we feel about history is supposed to trump any objective truth.

tubby

2/18/2013 10:26:55 am

It really puts on display America's love of conspiracy theories.

(...I do enjoy a good conspiracy theory myself. But it's like a good murder-mystery novel in that it's a fun fiction.)

2/18/2013 11:00:48 am

Thomas Pynchon Presents: Archaeology Unearthed

2/18/2013 05:43:37 pm

I've been restating these points in pretty much all the comments I've posted since I found this great blog a few weeks ago. That's one silver lining to AU existing in any event.

I don't think the producers of these shows are terribly intellectually advanced but they are clever enough to tap into what sells. They are clever enough to know that no one in this climate is going to lose money by bashing academics and feeding paranoia.

Several years ago, only because I had the business card of a guy in the cable TV business who was bar regular at the same place I was, I had the opportunity to pitch a TV show to a studio that does content for some of the basic cable networks. I felt much like Jerry and George pitching the show about nothing to NBC, only my show was about something.

I was told two disturbing things: the guy loved my idea but that it was too smart for his studio and he hated the programming he did. The more relevant thing here is that my two-page description of the show, which I thought was maybe too brief, was considered the "War and Peace" of TV pitches.

It was suggested that half a page of text should be enough to describe a show, tops, should I shop it elsewhere (which I haven't bothered).

We can imagine what the half-page that pitched this show looked like, A brief mention of conspiracy, rewriting that stuffy ol' academic history with "hidden history", and the nonsense term "forensic geologist" likely looked quite good on one half of one sheet of paper while hitting a few cues for mass appeal.

2/18/2013 10:34:45 pm

Sad but true about TV producers. I actually have the 1-page pitch for America Unearthed, and you're absolutely right. The show description is 2 paragraphs w/ 3 bullet points, it mentions conspiracies, and describes Scott Wolter as a "scientist" who's trying to exposes the truth that "some have gone to great lengths to cover up." Interestingly, in the original pitch Committee said Jefferson bought Louisiana because of secret "treasures," not Welsh land claims.

Kean Scott Monahan link

2/19/2013 01:24:33 pm

As one who endorses the scientific method, I acknowledge a trend by many cable TV development executives to pander to the sensational at the expense of a scholarly approach to construct theories based on a preponderance of the evidence.

However, in much the same way the History Channel is a gatekeeper to programming that only promises good ratings, peer review is archaeology's barrier to entry for a growing body of data supporting diffusionism.

This is not paranoia, this is the way American archaeology functions, as TIME magazine reported in March 2006.

Thus, any professional blessing for new, compelling evidence at odds with an overarching tenet denying pre-Columbian contact with the New World, with the lone exception of a short-term Viking visitation to northern Newfoundland around 1000 CE, is politically expedient to protect not only university grants to investigate ONLY indigenous cultures, but lengthen the shelf life of its members' precious textbooks and blogs, asserting alternative history beliefs must be driven by religious zealotry, colonial primacy, paranoid, uncredentialed crackpots, or just plain stupid people. But who's being scientific and who's being political for one own self interests of sustainability?

History is not absolute. It is an amalgam of legend, written works of dubious and often contemporary authors with different agendas, misinformation that creeps into expositions and re-constructions over time, and the miss-mash of what is considered political correctness of the day. Alternate history, likewise, is canard. What we're wrestling with here is in America, with the abundance of new discoveries possible using technology such as ground penetrating LIDAR, is previously UNKNOWN history that authorities cloaked in academia are prone to dismiss sight unseen and frauds. We have debunkers. On the other side are those with righteous indignation: call it conspiracy if you must, but there is an underlying resistance to new thought. And archaeologists, who claim roughshod over sub-fields such as archaeoastronomy are some of the most unimaginative people you will ever encounter. Their perspective by training is to look downward, deeper and deeper into every strata of soil in search of answers. Astronomy requires a diametrically opposite perspective, deeper into the sky above, trying to divine the roots of ancient astrology and understand how the nocturnal ancients really knew so much more than what we give them credit for knowing.

The dynamics of this discussion and all the others on Jason's blog are aimed at discrediting diffusionism and upholding the superior intellectual high ground claimed by archaeology and its parent discipline anthropology. But, in fact, politics drives this grand debate. Not all history is known...and if it were left up to American archaeology, as dogmatic as it has demonstrated itself to be, America would have its peripheral blinders locked in place indefinitely.

2/19/2013 02:21:42 pm

When I was a teenager, I watched Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin set foot on the moon live on a black and white TV at the clubhouse of a golf club where I was a bus boy. With the excitement of the Apollo missions to the moon, nearly everyone in my generation considered colonization of the moon by 2000 would be a certainty.

If an asteroid should impact the earth and we go the way of the dinosaurs, only really determined explorers with luck on their side scouring the desolate lunar surface would find evidence of our humanity for galactic history books. If the earth was a molten urban renewal project and the <1% of the lunar surface explored by mankind was missed in a superficial flyby, our humanity would be unknown, not an alternate, history. We knew we were here. But other sentient beings, with the exception of an exponentially more unlikely chance of encountering and interpreting one of the Voyager probes heading outside our solar system, would never discover evidence of our mortal existence in space. History either would or would not prevail; it depends on whether somebody discovered it and understood it.

If we want to show we're eager to learn history, then the pros in charge of discovering and interpreting it had better show less complacency and indifference than American archaeologists, with their heads firmly planted in the sands of time, do.

2/19/2013 03:02:21 pm

"peer review is archaeology's barrier to entry for a growing body of data supporting diffusionism"

You mean peer review by qualified archeologists? Yes, that'd be quite the barrier. Peer review by astronomers is also holding back the astrologers, and the alchemists are certainly getting no traction in the chemistry journals.

I'm not following how extending the shelf life of books would be good for publishers. What would be good for publishers would be having to rewrite all of the textbooks, would it not be? If greed is the motivator, look to planned obsolescence. If you're looking for profit motive I suggest you look to the people who are claiming that The Truth is in their brand NEW books, that is to say the diffusionists. The Scott Wolters of the world only get their money because they claim a need to rewrite everything, And, hey, lookie there, it JUST SO HAPPENS that they are also selling the rewrite. It's a miracle. They also get to skip straight ahead to being 'professor' to an audience of millions without first having to earn all those nagging degrees and doing all of that quality research. Such a drag, accuracy and standards. Who needs it, eh?

"Alernate history" - would that be history that toggles between being there and not? Surely we mean alternative history? And that's no canard, that's the literal selling point of shows like AU and AA. It is in fact all they've got. What's incredible is that they tell an American audience of people who flunked out of history classes, barely passed them or never even took them that the history they're largely ignorant of is wrong. An ego boost for the ignorant, and a great relief - those eggheads don't know nothin'!

"History is not absolute."

Well, no, actually, a lot of it is. The American Revolution came before the American Civil War for example. It necessarily had to, or else any civil war would not have made sense. Anyone who states that Lincoln was president before there was a US presidency, or before Lincoln was born, is wrong in absolute terms.

The only people who have anything to gain by discrediting the reality of objective fact are the people who stack up poorly against professionals, academics etc who have mastered a comprehension of said facts.

2/19/2013 03:29:58 pm

Earning a diploma as an archaeologist gets one into the club which has a license to dictate in absolute terms prospective evidence of diffusionism is unworthy of investigation and WILL NEVER see peer review approval, much less peer review review. A Priori dismissiveness. Wave the Magic Wand and it disappears because they concur it's a rotten idea (and overturning dogma might jeopardize the grant stream that is the Mother's Milk of academia and render many textbooks obsolete). Sure the publishers would be happy for the rewrites, but the chance of another Plate Tectonics revolution would leave many clubby archaeologists sworn to uphold independent inventionism embarrassed by a new diffusionist paradigm.

The archaeological community of North America, uneducated in even recognizing clear non-indigenous evidence, bullies its way to supremacy by name-calling the opposition, but waiving the scientific imperative to at least investigate.

2/19/2013 05:06:24 pm

Translation: you lack formal education in the field you denigrate. You're at once jealous and have the inflated self-evaluation of the "incompetent and unaware" (i.e. people who really aren't that clever tend also not even to be clever enough to realize the extent of their own limitations). If there weren't so many of you it'd be funny. As it stands you folks outnumber the rest of us. Behold:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning–Kruger_effect

This is the basis of every internet troll argument I've ever seen, the Incompetent and Unaware wading into an argument they don't even understand that they don't even understand.

For multiple years I've had a person I know to be a 10th grade dropout mock my political science degree and over a decade of professional experience in the field behind her own name plus a variety of sockpuppets, following me from site to site. Why? Because I pointed out that she was objectively wrong about a bar trivia quiz question which happens to fall into the poli sci realm.

What set her into Captain Ahab mode was when I mentioned that that the specialization of my degree happened to coincide with the issue at hand. I found the topic interesting; she found it a launching pad for attacking a 'college boy' (I'm a working class kid, first in my family to attend college, but whatever) and formal education in general. She also "homeschools" (i.e. fails to educate in any meaningful way) her son. Pity the lad who has a fool for a teacher. Same woman - no education beyond half of 10th grade, no chemistry, no statistics, no calc, no biochem, no physics, no lab work history, etc. - also hides behind sockpuppets and attacks doctors and researchers on the internet who do smoking studies. She thinks cigarettes are harmless and medical degrees are licenses to lie.

You two should meet and have some delayed children. You can award them coffee froth PhDs in Forensic Diffusion when they recite how the Vikings built Teotihuacan, and introduced King Tobacco to the red man from its native Norway.

2/19/2013 05:39:12 pm

Sir Randolph,

When you have no rebuttal, just spew a new string of insults!

No, I'm no archaeologist, but for 30 years have witnessed first-hand their intolerance and abject refusal to pursue a powerful and expansive family of linguistic, archaeoastronomical and spiritually profound petroglyphs in Colorado, Okahoma and Kansas, and I know of what I speak. I have a B.A. degree in English, pursued a successful career as a television journalist in a top 25 USA market, covering science and politics as specialty beats. I am not Scott Wolter and I acknowledge the shortcomings of America Unearthed, largelly induced by a very short production timetable to get to air. Episode 5 superficially reported on one of a dozen sites with Oghamic, archaeoastronomical and Mithraic evidence. It could have been reported more comprehensively, but my reporting involvement dating back to 1984 was the basis for their interest, as well as the CBS Evening News, Canadian Broadcasting, Denver Post, Rocky Mountain News and AP reports, as well. I am no stranger to controversy. I've lived it and seen the sheer laziness of the American archaeological establishment in refusing to look at the evidence, preferring instead to hurl insults and bully the dozen or so educated and intelligent individuals who contributed, voluntarily, their expertise to piece this fascinating story together. You can get a taste of how archaeologists initially dismissed the interest of BLM historian Don Rickey to what turned out to be unsubstantiated early finds that, oddly, led to later carvings far more substantial and worth the attention not only of archaeology, but of the American public whose anthropology contingent is brain-dead and proven to be unscientific when confronted with diffusionist data. They recognize it about as much as the Caribbean natives could see sailing ships on the horizon.

Surely, you have more name-calling ahead for me, but why not examine the abundant evidence available and the theories based on it?

You, as with every other archaeological defender before you, see no reason to exercise your scientific imperative to evaluate, fairly. You simply want to dismiss the evidence without examination. Pity.

2/19/2013 03:02:50 pm

2/19/2013 05:29:13 pm

Kean -

Here's the thing. When a civilization sets a colony or trading post of holy site at a location, especially one that involves repeated contact, trade etc., it leaves behind large amounts of obvious evidence.

We never have any large amounts of evidence of 'alternative history.' If we did, it'd be history. The 'alternative' bit is that nothing ordinary supports the claim.

We shouldn't have one rock at one location that kinda sorta looks like Phoenician if you squint and assume the carver had some form of palsy. The carver shouldn't be the one person in the group who forgot most of his own alphabet. There should be more than one artifact in a thousand-mile range, especially at places you claim were major trading or ceremonial areas.

There should be grave sites and caches of trash and personal effects of the visiting culture. There should be some rather specific record back in the home culture territory of the fact that we've send people halfway around the world, and that they've come back with the MOST FANTASTIC STORIES AND GOODS WE'VE EVER SEEN.

What you're claiming is that events as momentous as Columbus arriving back in Europe happened, and the Minoans or Celts etc just kinda yawned and shrugged.

Diffusionism is losing because it fails to provide even ordinary evidence for extraordinary claims. It fails at even a common sense level, let alone an academic level.

Kean Scott Monahan

2/19/2013 05:47:53 pm

First of all, English archaeologists bent on finding the habitation encampments/cultural remnants of Stonehenge in Salisbury Plains didn't stumble upon them until just this past decade. They were pretty intent on finding this trove of artifacts, but it took 'em a helluva long time to dig and pinpoint.

As you know, archaeological digs have to be authorized by archaeologists. And despite calls for their involvement by government agencies as prestigious as BLM whose field scientists implored an investigation of the Crack Cave in the Comanche National Grassland, not one shovelful of earth has been turned. That's complacency.

Diffusionism is alive and strong will prevail despite American archaeology's will to throttle all interest and diminish the people who are do the work they refuse to do.

2/19/2013 06:15:54 pm

"Television journalist" has the same relationship to journalist that "TV dinner" has to dinner. How's that for name calling?

You are not competent at any level to evaluate how any archeologist does his or her job, let alone to discredit the entire profession. Before the internet people like you had to stand on the corner with cardboard signs, screaming. Now you can SEO your way into a higher search engine position than sane people with education and experience in their own field.

If you want to talk about Britain as an example or an analogy, how about talking about the Roman Empire in Britain? Now that's a good example of having proof of the movement of people, of trade colonization and intermingling.

Are there Roman artifacts in Britain? More than one perhaps? Are there examples of Latin in Britain? Are these examples clearly Latin words, or do they all look like a monkey had a seizure while holding a knife?

Do we have more than one Roman artifact in Britain? Do we have Roman records of Britain in other parts of the Roman Empire?

Compare and contrast the proof for Romans in Britain with the 'proof' of your Europeans of choice in Pennsylvania or Arizona before Columbus.

(I should note that the standard internet conspiracy troll either won't or can't compare and contrast anything that will move discussion forward. They don't want discussion moved forward, because they will lose any such argument badly. They get validation simply out of being in the discussion; the goal is what they perceive as a "tie", allowing them to claim victory. Every and any attempt to agree on terms, agree to compare likes to likes and so forth - normal means of people arguing points in good faith - are avoided like the plague.)

2/19/2013 06:28:29 pm

I filmed the excavation of a Mithraic Temple in London, not far from Bush House (BBC Hdqrts.) in 1987. I've also shot comparative examples of Ogham in Ireland, England and Spain. I've the legwork and consulted the authorities essential for establishing a strong hypothesis of Irish travelers up the Arkansas River. Books have been written about this. Credible accounts in the Atlantic Monthly, TIME and other periodicals cite the very same dogmatic straightjacket worn by archaeologists that I have observed.

I don't expect you to agree with me. You're clearly a defender of the indefensible behaviors marked by archaeological indifference to the evidence presented. We've reached an impasse in communication. I will not descend to your level of comparing and contrasting TV dinners to TV journalism. You've established the low tide mark of intellectualism you so desperately decry in others.

2/21/2013 11:21:01 am

Well I see you have taken up the abuse I was receiving, oh lord do not show any sense of humor Kean, it particularly annoys them.
I like what you are saying... so thank you for standing up and getting pummeled.
I think I will like AU even more now that I've been introduced to haters. yikes

2/19/2013 06:42:01 pm

Kean -

Well hey I've taken photos of archeological sites, including a couple of digs, on 5 continents. That's absolutely true. I like to go clambering around ruins when I have the time and money. So what? (I guess that makes me a Forensic Tourist, I investigate what killed my travel budget.)

"consulted the authorities essential for establishing a strong hypothesis of Irish travelers up the Arkansas River"

Who might those 'authorities' be, and how did they get to be authorities? This should be good...

Why don't you stop dodging my offer of comparing and contrasting proof of the Roman Empire in Britain with proof of the Irish going up the Arkansas River? If that's what you know best, if the proper 'authorities' have been consulted by you during what I can only imagine are the visiting hours at the facility where their families had them admitted, let's go with that.

First off, do you accept that the Romans were in Britain? How do you come to this conclusion?

Kayci

11/8/2014 10:50:07 am

I don't understand what this vile exchange is accomplishing. Any expertise or counterpoints you demonstrated regarding AU has been completely discredited by your name-calling return to elementary school.

Andrew

9/2/2015 11:05:54 am

Christopher Randolph -

You're condescending attitude is exactly why people don't trust Academics leading to the popularity of shows like America Unearthed. So congrats you are part of creating the ideas that you are fighting against. People probably wouldn't believe things like Kean does if you could be a professional and realize that convincing your piers of something is only the first and least important step the most important is convincing the rest of the world and doing so in a manner that is respectfully not dictating it to them.

Barddas Badass

8/18/2020 09:01:27 am

I think Mr. Randolph is just really frustrated that his excellent points are being completely ignored. Despite his attitude, he ought to be listened to. The message is what's important, not the temperament of the messenger. It's great when people are able to put aside their emotions, but that's sometimes tough to do when we're talking about things we feel strongly about.

I think it's important to note, also, that not all opinions carry the same weight. I would sooner trust an oncologist to tell me whether I had cancer and what to do about it than I would a bricklayer, or even a dentist.

That's not to say there isn't a place in this discussion for the talented amateur, but it's vital that all such amateurs be held to the same standard as the professionals when it comes to the quality of their evidence.

Gary J.

2/21/2013 09:25:48 am

Jason ... so Scott Wolter reads your blog? I had wondered if he did, but this is the first indication that he does so that I've seen. How did he contact you? Did he call, or email, or make a blog reply?

Admittedly, I only read a bit of your writeup and the first quote by Wolter. Now you've forced me to read everything and then go back and watch the entire program again. :) If I still have it on my DVR. I can't do it now because the wife and I are getting ready to go see Elvis tonight. Ha. Actually, it's a Vegas Elvis impersonator group that's in town. I love music by the King.

I think it's great that Scott is reading and honestly I wish he would openly participate in the discussions.

Great job!

2/21/2013 09:37:17 am

Yes, he reads my blog. He first contacted me by posting a response to my blog entry reporting my conclusion that I could find no evidence to support the existence of the master's degree he claimed on his resume. I am still waiting for him to provide the "presidential directive" ordering Lewis to search for Welsh Indians, which I failed to find in the Jefferson papers or Lewis's papers.

Fred Jonson

3/25/2013 09:38:48 am

If it is really an obvious hoax, nobody should be afraid of anyone finding out the details

Jose Simental

12/26/2013 09:14:39 am

Kean,

In one of your comments you mention "ground penetrating LIDAR". As a remote sensing professional I have to assume you mean "ground penetrating RADAR". The acronym LiDAR stands for Light Detection And Ranging and it is a remote sensing technology that measures distance by illuminating a target with a laser. Although this technology has been used in Archeology, it does not penetrate "ground". When used in Archeology it is used to find ancient surface structures in many environments. Actually Wolter used the technology to find a mound in Central America during one episode. I don't agree with his conclusions on what the results of using the technology showed. Anyway, Jason did a great job discussing that episode already and I feel you meant to say ground penetrating RADAR.

Yes I did say "remote sensing" professional and photogrammetry, LiDAR, SONAR, and RADAR are among the tools we use.

Respectfully

Jose

T Woods link

2/14/2014 08:43:31 pm

I feel is important to note this summary: H2 just aired the segment which discusses this alleged artifact. The program was to determine if Lewis, (of the Lewis and Clark Expedition), committed suicide from multiple gunshot wounds.
My career is in an entirely different field, and I watched this program for entertainment and learning. My understanding was whether this was a clever fake, or a true relic, it may have been enough to get Lewis murdered.
The other facts, both President Jefferson and Lewis were Masons,
Jefferson may have asked Lewis to check into claims of such a relic. Lewis verified its existence. Several pages are missing from the journals of Lewis. The Masonic apron of Lewis, which rests in a museum, is stain with bloodstains, and two DNA profiles were obtained. The profiles were compared with the profile of a descendant of Lewis' sister. The result indicated at least two individuals other than Lewis were present when he was murdered. Even if the descendant is not of Lewis' bloodline, there was one other person who bled on the apron, which makes his death by multiple gunshot wounds more of a homicide.

Barry link

4/19/2015 11:44:11 am

Every time I watch an episode I think to myself, "god his travel agent must make a fortune!"

Kirby L. Whitacre

6/11/2015 02:12:06 pm

I've come upon this blog two years after most of the postings. However, I have had a long-time interest in the legend of Welsh settlers in Indiana.

On a late July afternoon in 1999, I was at the Falls of the Ohio Museum, which was just about to close for the day. Explaining to one of the "rangers" that I had a historical interest, she graciously allowed me all the time I wanted to study the stone. Although it was under glass, my eyes were not more than a foot from it as I hand drew a copy on a legal pad.

While I do have a Masters Degree, with a minor in world history, I certainly am no expert on forgeries, on rock aging, on ancient languages, etc. As regards Scott Wolter, I have seen maybe 8 episodes, including, I believe, the one mentioned. I have yet to see him prove or actually find that for which he was looking in any particular episode. There is obvious sensationalism.

Nevertheless, I would offer this. The "writing" on the stone, to me, only bears a moderate resemblance to what I have seen of the Coleren y Beird alphabet. One scholar described it as "ancient Welsh" but I've lost the reference.

While I am willing to be convinced that the stone is a fake, if that is or has been proven, in addition to what I said about the alphabet:

1.Almost without doubt, some manner of Europeans were in Indiana in pre Columbian times and before the first purported white man, LaSalle in 1687.
2.Roman coins have been found near the Falls of the Ohio--the Welsh probably used Roman coins for a period of their history.
3. George Rogers Clark and other white men, viewed 3 skeletons that had been found on an island in the Ohio River, wearing Welsh breastplates, in 1799 with an inscription that sounds, in manner of speech, much like the manner of speech of what the stone is said to mean (i.e. a different saying but extremely similarly spoken in style of language construction as the translation of the stone).
4. If the stone was really found as described, it is difficult to believe that it is a hoax because it was in an area that did not guarantee it ever being found (granted, the finder may have been the "hoaxer").
5. A great battle was fought on the Devil's backbone, overlooking the Ohio River, in Clark County Indiana. The participants who defended almost certainly were not Indians from the limited findings. The battle was Pre-Columbian.
6.The White River Valley in Indiana had numerous "stone forts" (from many sources) and Indians did not build stone forts.
7.There is much other circumstantial evidence about the Welsh or someone cited in many sources which one can access by searching the key terms, such as "Welsh in Indiana", "stone forts of Indiana", etc. Some of these are, of course, just speculative references and not primary sources.

Probably my first reference to all of this was a book by Harold Allison titled, The Tragic Saga of the Indiana Indians, Graphic Press, 1986,

Sometime after my visit, I had read that the stone was to be sent to a university in Arizona for expert examination or possible dating. If that ever happened, I have no knowledge of it. There is other information at the Falls of the Oho Museum that would lend support to the theory of the Welsh in Indiana in pre-Columbian tmes.

steve

11/5/2015 10:38:28 am

All these arguments are incorrect because St. Brendan The Navigator was here first so this area should all be annexed by the Republic Of Ireland!
Seriously, when I watch any of Mr. Wolter's programming it is for entertainment purposes only, He's hardly a great scholar but his assertions do raise interesting points from time to time and they are not harmful to anyone. One of the so called "Ghost Shows" came to my area in Central Indiana, made a bunch of unfounded accusations about a deceased doctor, his former property etc. Long term effect was that a beautiful old home which was a landmark had to be razed because of vandals and trespassers.