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Review of America Unearthed S02E13 "The Spearhead Conspiracy"

2/23/2014

281 Comments

 
I’m not quite sure how to give background on an idea that is not already an established part of fringe history. The focus of America Unearthed S02E13 “The Spearhead Conspiracy,” a spear point in Hawaii allegedly connected to Mexico, occurred too recently (2009) to have a great deal of scholarly material, and the question of a Polynesian connection to Mesoamerica is obviously not beyond the realm of possibility. Archaeologists, have in the past used Hawaii as an ethnographic comparison and model for the Maya in terms of the obsidian trade, and a highly controversial claim holds that the Mapuche of Chile—though not Mexico—share a word for obsidian with Polynesians from Easter Island.

Therefore, I am going to write about the history of extraordinary claims about Polynesia since the spine of this episode is a rather simple test of where the obsidian used in the spearhead originated.

Background

The Polynesians have traditionally been an afterthought among fringe historians, sort of second-class citizens. Ignatius Donnelly mentioned them only once in Atlantis: The Antediluvian World, and then only secondhand to discount them as possessing any genuine Atlantis tradition. In fact, he considered the Pacific impassable. Of the many routes Donnelly and other fringe historians proposed for Old World peoples to migrate to America, the Pacific was not one of the more popular. The Bering Strait, the Viking route across the North Atlantic, and a southern Atlantic route between western Africa and Brazil were all considered much more probably down to the 1920s. The exception to this was claims for medieval Chinese voyages to the West Coast of America, which in the 1800s were sometimes thought to have taken a Pacific path. (Donnelly thought they came via Africa and the Atlantic.)

In Polynesia itself, the early investigators had little good to say about the history of the islands. In 1829, the missionary William Ellis published an early theory that the Polynesians were in fact related to the peoples of South America in his Polynesian Researches (vol. 2). Using the same evidence later marshaled by Thor Heyerdahl, he wrote that the two cultures were similar to each other—and to Madagascar off Africa!
There are also many points of resemblance in language, manners, and customs, between the South Sea Islanders and the inhabitants of Madagascar in the west; the inhabitants of the Aleutian and Kurile islands, in the north, which stretch along the mouth of Behring’s straits, and form the chain which connects the old and the new worlds; and also between the Polynesians and the inhabitants of Mexico, and some parts of South America. The general cast of feature, and frequent shade of complexion-the practice of tatauing [tattooing], which prevails among the Aleutians, and some of the tribes of America-the process of embalming the dead bodies of their chiefs, and preserving them uninterred-the game of chess among the Araucanians—the word for God being tew or tev—the exposure of their children—their games—their mode of dressing the hair, ornamenting it with feathers—the numerous words in their language resembling those of Tahiti, &c.; their dress, especially the poncho, and even the legend of the origin of the Incas, bear no small resemblance to that of Tii, who was also descended from the sun.
Although he allowed that most believed the Polynesians to have come from Asia, he felt that it would be “easy to imagine how they could have proceeded from the east.” On the analogy of ships known to have been blown westward across the Pacific in historic times, he concluded that South Americans were blown to Polynesia, finding it difficult to believe that “Asian” people could have had sophisticated navigational skills for a westward voyage. He did, however, concede that it was possible that Polynesia’s islands were “the remains of a continent, originally stretching across the Pacific, and uniting Asia and America” that disappeared during the Flood of Noah. This brief speculation would return more than once in fringe versions of Polynesian history. Being a good follower of Jacob Bryant, he assumed the Polynesians worshiped Noah’s Ark and descended from the first family after the Flood.

The first European explorers generally considered the Polynesians to be sensual, amiable, and dim. Therefore, the stone temples and idols found on islands across the major culture areas of the Pacific could not have been the work of the Polynesians, and certainly not in the historical period, when the Polynesians populated the Pacific. Instead, many assumed that the stone works were the ruins of a lost white civilization. Here is how the New International Encyclopedia described the stone ruins in 1915:
Stone structures are reported by savage informants as existing in the inland valleys of Bougainville, Solomon Islands, but it is not yet safe to attempt exploration, and by Prebendary Codrington in Gog of the Banks group, and in New Caledonia; these are of Melanesia. In nuclear Polynesia occur the Nanga in Fiji, the trilithon of Tonga, in Samoa walls in the mountains and the Fale-o-le-Fe‘e. In southeastern Polynesia walls and platforms are found in Rapa Iti, Pitcairn, and Easter islands, and walls in the Marquesas. In Micronesia there are stone remains on Howland Island; extensive remains at Tapak, Lele, and Metalanim in the Caroline Islands; interesting structures at Tinian in the Ladrones. The walls and platforms are built of unworked country rock, in general of cyclopean dimensions, erected without builder’s art or any use of cement. […] The modern Polynesian, an advanced neolithic type, has been less than 1000 years in the Pacific. The appearance of age in these megaliths and the absence of tradition of their erection (all the more noteworthy in a race which recites the history of a fragile mat through 15 generations and the story of a greenstone spearhead from even remoter antiquity) are strong evidence that the megalithic monuments of the Pacific islands far antedate the arrival of the Polynesians and are the work of a lost population.
I discuss these claims somewhat facetiously in my parody book Cthulhu in World Mythology where I note the similarity between the stone ruins dedicated to the octopus god of war, Fale-o-le-Fe‘e, and the stone citadel of R’lyeh, home to the octopus-headed extraterrestrial god Cthulhu.

By the end of the nineteenth century these ruins were recognized as the work of Polynesian people by scholars, missionaries, and travelers like William B. Churchward, George Turner, and John B. Stair, but because of the linger specter of racism, the historians who compiled encyclopedias were slow to acknowledge the obvious, clinging instead to the belief that the temples were thousands of years older than the Polynesians using them.

From the “lost race” interpretation of the Polynesian ruins, the French occultist Louis Jacolliot (1837-1890) wrote in Histoire des Vierges: Les peuples et les continents disparus (1874) that the islands of the Pacific had once been united in a single continent, now sunken, and that this continent was the home of an ancient lost race. Non-existent imaginary Hindu writings would confirm that this continent was called Rutas. He originally placed it in the Indian Ocean, but by the time Helena Blavatsky read his works in compiling Isis Unveiled (1877), it was firmly in the Pacific. He attributed to Polynesia myth the belief that the continent had been home to “yellow men” and “black men” who were forever at war. Blavatsky used this as evidence for the existence of the equally fictitious continent of Lemuria, and the fake “Col.” James Churchward in turn reanimated Jacolliot’s whole story—down to the proof in lost writings in India—as the lost continent of Mu, which answered in all details but one to Rutas. Churchward was a racist, so he added to his Pacific continent of Mu (a name originally attributed to Atlantis by Augustus Le Plongeon) a ruling “white race” of “superior” attributes who kept the peace between the yellow and black peoples they kept as slaves.

From Churchward the ancient astronaut theorist David Childress developed his own race-based prehistory where a ruling white race ran the Pacific Ocean and kept the Polynesians as slaves. From Churchward he borrows the idea that these white gods had blond hair and wore red turbans—the same seen atop the statues on Easter Island, monuments to the greatness of white people. It was, of course, Easter Island that was the focus on the most fringe speculation.

Erich von Däniken claimed that the Easter Island script was “astonishingly” like Chinese (no fooling: Polynesians were pushed out of Asia by the Chinese), and he attributed the similarities to aliens. He also asserted in Gods from Outer Space (1970) that the aliens made the famous stone statues, the moai, “which they set up on stone pedestals along the coast so that they were visible from afar.” Graham Hancock argued that instead the culture of Easter Island was a close cousin to that of South America, both in turn the gift of the white people who lived in a lost civilization. To find, he said, stone works and writing “together and focussed on a remote island in the Pacific, apparently at once, is extremely hard to explain in terms of normal ‘evolutionary’ processes usually ascribed to human societies.” When I raised the point with him back in 2001 that other Polynesian peoples built statues and walls and temples, he told me: “Although there are other statue making cultures in Polynesia (e.g. see examples from Tahiti) they don’t look specially like Moai to me.” So the lost civilization colonized just one Pacific island.

Hancock was here building off the famous work of Thor Heyerdahl, the great adventurer, who spent much of his life arguing that South Americans had settled the Pacific from the east, rather than Asians from the west. He argued that the material culture of the Pacific was too similar to that of Peru to be a coincidence, and that the stone architecture of the Polynesian temples was fairly close to that of Tiahuanaco (Tiwakanu) in Bolivia. Therefore, the people of Tiahuanaco had traveled to Easter Island under the god-king Viracocha and founded the island’s culture. As archaeologists Robert C. Suggs wrote in criticizing Heyerdahl in the 1960s: “Heyerdahl’s Peruvians must have availed themselves of that classical device of science fiction, the time machine, for they showed up off Easter Island in A.D. 380, led by a post-A.D. 750 Incan god-hero, with an A.D. 750 Tiahauanco material culture featuring A.D. 1500 Incan walls, and not one thing characteristic of the Tiahanaco period in Peru and Bolivia.”

(Disclosure: I have spoken with Dr. Suggs in the past and know him slightly. He is one of the pioneers of Polynesian archaeology, helping establish the Southeast Asian origins of the Polynesians.)

The lack of any South American artifacts in Polynesia helped seal the fate of Heyerdahl’s idea at midcentury. But there was in fact a connection between Polynesia and South America, and that was the sweet potato, an American crop that was also cultivated in Polynesia before the Europeans arrived and shares the same name, kumara, in both Quechua and Polynesian languages. Heyerdahl had argued that the sweet potato represented a South American contribution to Polynesia, but until the 1990s, there was no proof that the pre-Columbian varieties of sweet potato had been known in Polynesia. That changed with the discovery of the remains of one such potato types on Mangaia Island in 1992. More recently, DNA tests conducted in 2013 on a sweet potato sample obtained by Captain Cook before Europeans reintroduced the sweet potato to Polynesia suggest that the sweet potato originated in South America and was taken back to Polynesia by Polynesians who visited the Americas. It is now believed that this occurred around 1000 CE, according to the 2011 edited volume Polynesians in America: Pre-Columbian Contacts with the New World, itself somewhat controversial.

Technically, of course, this evidence could support travel in either direction—either from Polynesia to South America or South America to Polynesia. The lack of any South American material in Polynesia, physical or genetic, suggests the contact came from the Pacific.

There is also evidence that the Polynesians brought chickens to South America, but because the dates obtained for the chicken bones are so close to the time of European contact (1300-1400 CE), the margin of error does not exclude a post-Conquest date. Nevertheless, the archaeologists who excavated the bones in 2007 are certain they came from a pre-Spanish context. Some have also speculated that the Polynesians learned the art of trepanning from contact with South America, but the dates for trepanned skulls in Polynesia—1300 CE and later—exclude this possibility, according to the 2003 edited volume Trepanation: History, Discovery, Theory.

Other evidence is more ambiguous but contributes toward a picture of occasional Polynesian contact with the Western coast not just of South America but perhaps North America as well. Terry Jones, the archaeologist who edited Polynesians in America, believes that there was contact between the Chumash people of southern California and Polynesians. Jones, whose specialty is North American archaeology rather than Polynesian, believes that the plank-sewn boats used by the Chumash are so different from those of neighboring tribes that they could only have diffused from Polynesia. His research partner, Kathryn Klar, a professor of Celtic linguistics, suggested that the name of the boat in Chumash, tomolo, is cognate with its Hawaiian name kumulaau from a proposed proto-Central Eastern Polynesian original *tumura’aakau. She has also identified several other Chumash words related to boats that seem similar to Polynesian words.

Jones and Klar propose two Polynesian contact events, as Jones told the Ancient History Encyclopedia last year:
We do not believe that contacts were by any means sustained, but we do see the likelihood of two distinct contact events: one close to c. 700 CE that resulted in conveyance of sewn-plank boat technology and the composite harpoon, and a second event around c. 1300 CE that resulted in diffusion of the compound bone hook, grooved and barbed bone fishhooks, and grooved and barbed shell fishhooks. The earlier event may have originated from central Polynesia, while the second was from Hawaii.
Most archaeologists who have studied the Chumash reject the claim that the sewn-plank boats were delivered to them from Polynesia because these boats have a continuous development in the archaeological record from 700 CE to the present, as Lynn Gamble wrote in American Antiquity in 2002. While the physical remains can only be dated back that far, the appearance of deep sea fish species at Chumash sites prior to this period, going back to the first or second century CE, suggests that there had been deep-sea boats of some time, probably developmental phases of the sewn-plank canoe, centuries earlier. Gamble does not exclude the possibility of contact with Polynesia but reports that other experts feel that the two types of canoe are constructed so differently (both in shape and technique) that they are not likely to be directly related.
Picture
A Chumash tomol built for anthropologists in 1913. It does not much resembled a traditional Polynesian boat, seen below.
Picture
Hawaiian double-hulled canoe. In "Cthulhu in World Mythology" I use this image to represent Cthulhu cultists because of the octopus-like masks the rowers wear. (Beinecke Library)
What is perhaps interesting is Jones’s discussion of the academic response. He says that specialists in Pacific archaeology are themselves divided between a “long” and “short” chronology for Polynesian settlement. This gets technical, but the long and short of it is that the “short” chronology wouldn’t see the settlement of Hawaii until after the alleged arrival in California, which is problematic for Pacific scholars. He also says that while Europeans are receptive to the idea of Polynesian contact with the Americas, American archaeologists have been resistant because of fears that “our case denigrates Native Californians by implying that they were incapable of developing these innovations on their own (which we do not).” This is something we’ve seen over and again: When experts do not accept a controversial finding, the proponent accuses them of crying racism or being dogmatic, even when the objections are based on an interpretation of archaeological evidence or construction techniques.

It reminds me a bit of the controversy over two other types of boats: The famous reed boats of Lake Titicaca which superficially resemble those of Egypt, and the bark boats of the Mandan that supposedly resembled those of the Welsh. In those cases, the similarities were coincidental.

Jones’s and Klar’s work remains controversial, but the evidence seems to make a strong case for sporadic contact between Polynesia and South America. I’m not so sure about the North American connection.

The Episode

Our show opens with Kennewick Man, of all things, the number one exhibit in the world of fringe thinkers who are focused on establishing a European—specifically Caucasian—presence in the New World because in the 1990s Jim Chatters, who excavated the resto of the skeleton (and whom we shall meet), said that the skeleton might be Caucasoid. For now, we simply see two men pull a skull from some water at Kennewick, Washington in 1996, and then the opening credits roll. I have no idea how this fits into a story about Polynesians, but I can take a guess.

After the credits, we are in Hawaii to investigate a spear point found in Hawaii. The photograph shows a stereotypical arrowhead-shaped spear point made of volcanic glass of a green-gold color. Wolter tells us that Hawaiian obsidian isn’t that color, so he meets with Janet Six, a University of Hawaii archaeologist, who tells him that the spear point may be distinctive Mexican Pachuca obsidian, and Wolter asserts that the mythic “Land of Mist and Fog” is assumed to be Mesoamerica, which is not true. It is possible to interpret myths that way, but to assert that they are unquestioningly related to Mesoamerica stretches the evidence.

After the first commercial, we dispense with the usual on-screen recap in favor of a more sedate spoken recap. I am rather dumbfounded that Wolter is uninterested in proving that the Polynesians reached Mexico—which would actually rewrite history—and instead cares only for whether they hit within the borders of the mainland United States. (Hawaii, after all, is already part of the United States.)

At the University of Hawaii, Wolter talks with Terry Hunt about Polynesian history and the role of the sweet potato and chickens (discussed above) in demonstrating that the Polynesians reached South America. Wolter seems uninterested in this and presses Hunt on whether the Polynesians reached North America. Hunt tells Wolter about the Chumash people, also discussed above, whose boats may or may not resemble Polynesian vessels. “That would change history!” Wolter enthuses, finally rousing himself to become interested in something related to the Polynesians once a mainland U.S. connection pops up. Apparently Mesoamerica is not good enough for this show.

Wolter goes to Maui to meet with the men who found the obsidian spearhead in 2009, Trevor Carter and Bryan Axtell. Axtell is an actor who formed a production company shortly after finding the spearhead, and I am unable to determine anything about Trevor Carter. A man of the same name was busted as part of a major gambling sting in 2012, but I don’t think it’s the same guy. Unfortunately, Wolter isn’t able to maintain interest for long, so we are subjected to a Manly Adventure as he zip lines across the ravine to meet the men. Carter and Axtell tell Wolter about discovering the spear head by literally stumbling over it. The men strangely tell Wolter that they were impressed by “the energy” that it “put off,” which implies a supernatural connection. The men tell Wolter that Park officials did not take an interest in the spearhead because it did not sound like a Hawaiian artifact, and one of the men had a picture of the spearhead tattooed on his body. This is the second time in this show’s history that someone has shown him his tattoo in lieu of evidence. Last time it was Ogham writing.

Wolter is outraged that the Park Service reclaimed the spearhead shortly before Wolter came to investigate it, some four years after its discovery, and he implies—but does not state—that this has nefarious intent. It was most likely due to the two men contacting the Park Service and rousing official interest.

After the break, both men assert that the Park Service only took interest in the artifact because they “knew you (Wolter) were coming.” Wolter wants to know why the Park Service took the artifact, and no one seems aware that archaeological material found within the boundaries of a national park are the property of the United States government. “I’ve never heard of anything like this before,” Wolter says. “I’ve never heard of a sting operation like this.” The men agree that the government is trying to get “in” in Wolter’s investigation. Afterward, Wolter dutifully reports that it’s illegal to remove artifacts from national parks, but slips the line in as a voice over so that viewers are likely to miss it amidst the talk about conspiracies. The men tell Wolter that the Park Service won’t let anyone speak to them until the investigation is over. I suppose on Monday I’ll have to call the National Park Service to find out about this. Wolter does not appear to actually contact the Park Service to ask for their views. That might turn up a logical explanation and undermine the evidence for Wolter as a martyr for the Truth.

Wolter pretends to receive a text message from Janet Six, who has tested the obsidian (obviously long before, since the Park Service has the spearhead) and found that it matches the Mexican sample. Unfortunately, there is no way to prove that the spearhead was actually left behind by Polynesians and not tourists, hoaxers, or travelers since the archaeological context is entirely absent. Further, no one checks with Mexican archaeologists to see whether the spearhead is in fact an ancient Mexican artifact (and if so, from which culture) or a more recent tourist knockoff.

After the break we get a recap on screen followed by a verbal recap. Then Wolter gives up on what should have been the centerpiece of the entire America Unearthed series—actual hard evidence of contact, allegedly!—to go off to California to meet Terry Jones. Jones shows Wolter a Chumash tomol and a Polynesian canoe that both use similar sewn-plank styles. Jones shows Wolter an image of a Polynesian canoe that is much closer to the tomol than the seagoing Polynesian vessels typically associated with Polynesia. Even Jones admits that the seagoing boats were different. Jones also reviews the linguistic evidence and the evidence of fishhooks that suggests a Polynesian connection to the Chumash. It’s not impossible, but more work is needed to prove this.

We then waste time watching Wolter paddle the Chumash tomol.

Wolter speaks with a Chumash woman who tells him that there are Chumash words that are similar to Polynesian words, but this is not an “oral tradition” as Wolter asserts but rather the woman is repeating for Wolter what she has learned from the work of Jones. She then tells Wolter that Kennewick Man was Polynesian.

This is prima facie stupid. Polynesians did not become Polynesians until they left Southeast Asia around 500 CE. Any connection to Kennewick Man—who dates back to 7600 BCE—is due only to the deep shared history of Polynesians and Native Americans in ancestral Asia. The Chumash woman is mangling claims from University of New Mexico anthropologist Joseph Powell, who claimed that the teeth of Kennewick Man were characteristic of the Sundadont group, whose modern representatives are the Ainu of Japan and the Polynesians, and other anthropologists like Jim Chatters (whom we’ll meet anon), who have also suggested a connection between the skull size and shape and the Ainu and Polynesians. In other words, Kennewick Man, if they are correct (and this is not certain), was part of an ancestral genetic group that was once prominent in Asia but which has now been largely displaced by modern Asians. This is not the same as saying he was a Polynesian—the people who colonized the Pacific islands between 500 and 1200 CE, some 8,000 or 9,000 years later.

After the last break, Wolter recaps in voice over what he’s discussed so far, but he then reveals his real interest. It isn’t in finding Polynesians in Mexico (why, that might actually rewrite textbooks!). Instead, it’s again going back to look for the first Americans. He talks with Will Thomas, who found the Kennewick skull in 1996, and we waste time listening to the story of how the bones were uncovered. Then we slowly drive to Jim Chatters’s lab. Chatters sued to study Kennewick Man, and he is the one who accidentally set off the wave of white supremacist ranting about the skeleton when he declared it “Caucasoid” before revising his claims later to suggest that the skull’s closest relatives were the Ainu and Polynesians.

Wolter is upset that he can’t view the skull, so he decides to waste precious minutes showing us how a 3D printer can be used to make a copy of the skull from its CAT scans. This is all for show since the results are predetermined: We know that Chatters sees a connection to the Polynesians that other anthropologists attribute to Clovis-era genetic diversity, lost around 6000 BCE when there was a dramatic shift in population demographics.

Wolter therefore illogically concludes that the Polynesians were in America in 7600 BCE, some 8000 years before the Polynesians ever settled Polynesia. He seems unaware of Polynesian prehistory, or the Asian populations from which they descended.

He finishes the season by drawing on his glowing map in his lab to connect random sites into a giant M with a crossed center, a symbol from his new book, which he believe stands for the Mary Magdalene Holy Bloodline conspiracy. This is utter bullshit since the sites have nothing to do with one another and Mary Magdalene was never mentioned this season. It seems to be a teaser for the upcoming season, meant as a parallel to the ludicrous Fibonacci curve drawn on last season’s map.

And so, after a season of half-baked treasure hunts the turned up nothing, attempts to resurrect the myth of the Mound Builders, and multiple efforts to suggest the existence of an endless conspiracy aiming to use Confederate gold to finance global genocide, it all ends with this: Wolter finally “finds” (well, reports someone else’s findings) about a spearhead that might actually prove something, and instead of running this down to make a solid case, he instead gives up and doesn’t care because it’s in Mexico! For crying out loud! The only interesting piece of new information this show has ever shown, and Wolter uses it primarily to support claims for an anti-Wolter government conspiracy. Of course it’s all about him!

I have to admit that this season was more a slog to get through than the last. The episodes were slower, with fewer outrageous claims per hour. On the one hand, it meant that I could review them faster since there was less to investigate, but on the other hand it made for programs that were occasionally exceedingly boring. The program’s new Saturday time slot didn’t help; I typically like to review shows in the morning when I am fresher and more alert, but I have other obligations on Sundays, and this made it hard on me to produce timely reviews.

I could use some time off before the show starts up again. If there is going to be more Holy Bloodline conspiracy stuff, I may need a long break.
281 Comments
CHV
2/22/2014 02:18:55 pm

I love it when Scott likes to think of himself as a would-be Fox Mulder of archaeology (not that he's got such a degree) locked in a constant struggle with Big Brother for custody of "the truth" (which, of course, is out there).

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jim
10/15/2015 09:53:40 am

There could be a more simple explanation to the spear point "discovery"....Perhaps a hiker had one as a necklace,,, and it broke free..? Anyway,,, because of a lack of game in a volcanic crater,,, it seems unlikely that a hunter left it there...What ever the story,,, I think we can all agree that Mr. Wolter is a flamboyant jackass !

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Deborah
5/26/2019 02:42:24 pm

Hiw is it that there is no obsidian in Hawaii with all of the volcanos???

Americanegro
8/26/2016 06:27:40 pm

While previously I had given him the benefit of the doubt as being just aggressively stupid and uninformed, the Hawaii episode was the one that crystallized in my psyche according to the Holy Laws of Universal Creation and Universal Maintenance, in accordance with the Being-Law Ashkenadzoo and the Holy Octagrammaton, that Scott Wolter is an enormous fag.

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Tara Jordan link
2/22/2014 02:53:34 pm

Diffusionism Reconsidered: Linguistic and Archaeological Evidence for Prehistoric Polynesian Contact with Southern California
http://tinyurl.com/mw4dgsp

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CFC
2/22/2014 03:22:53 pm

Thanks for the article Tara.

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titus pullo
2/24/2014 10:29:19 am

Tara,

I don't know much about the use of linguistics in determining linkages. I guess I've seen so many "linguistics" on H2 and wonder the probability of reading too much into similar words. For example are the ancient european (celtic) and so on really in origin in India? How exact is linguistics for establishing ancient links? I remember getting confused by the Seneca Tribe and Seneca the Roman Writer when I was a kid...I thought the tribe was named after him..ha ha

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yakko
2/24/2014 11:14:04 am

One of my favorite examples of this is the Chinese word "yan". When pronounced with a falling tone, it means (among other things) "swallow". Just as in English, it means both "to swallow" something, and also the bird called the "swallow". When I first ran across that, all I thought of what "what a funny coincidence". But I'm sure I could make some meaningful connection about how the Chinese settled in England at some point, if I wanted to.

Tara Jordan link
2/26/2014 09:36:32 am

Titus.
"I don't know much about the use of linguistics in determining linkages"."How exact is linguistics for establishing ancient links?."

You need to talk to a Philologist,"because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns; that is to say, there are things that we now know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns – there are things we do not know we don't know."

Jeanne
2/26/2014 10:27:45 am

On linguistics...yes, there can be similarities from both languages sharing a more ancient language. For example in Sanskrit the word for father is Pitar...Latin , pater...German Vatter, and others between India and Europe.....because they all are descendants of the indoeuropean language. I laughter one night on that crazy Ancient alien show...some guy said that the Hebrew word for man is Adam and the Arabic word for man is and an ( something close but I don't remember exactly)....so it MUST have been because aliens taught them these languages....rather than they both came from an older one. Nuts

yakko
2/26/2014 11:51:49 am

Good heavens, they don't even know that Hebrew and Arabic are closely-related Semitic languages, or be bothered to look it up? I suppose by that argument, the English and the Icelanders were taught the languages of their respective island by aliens because they both say "good day" and "good night" when greeting or leaving. I mean, just look how far apart those islands are, what other explanation could there be? :-) I've already used the expression "turtles all the way down", but that's what keeps coming to mind when I contemplate the ignorance of these buffoons.

david
2/22/2014 03:10:48 pm

I loved the fact that the people who found the spearhead seemed to be regurgitating scripted lines. Also the guy who didn't find the spearhead appeared to be half-baked while he was flapping his jaw. "Scott they took it from us." Lol really?! what a couple of fuckheads. But the best thing is how they supposedly found it. Like it was just laying out in the open amongst some rocks. It's been sitting their for a few hundred years, but it's still sitting on the surface in the Hawaiian climate? Scott should stick to the masons, knight's templar, holy grail, arc of the covenant stuff. Because real history seems to not really mean anything to him.

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Seeker
2/22/2014 07:39:32 pm

I also wasn’t impressed by the guy(s) who allegedly found the spearhead. If it is a genuine artifact, don’t people have any clue they aren’t supposed to remove items found in a National Park because: 1) it’s illegal 2) it’s so important for experts to investigate them in situ and 3) it’s incredibly disrespectful? This seemed again like an instance of AU treating the audience like complete idiots. The only thing worse than these guys was how the beer swilling discoverers of Kennewick man treated human remains. Pretty pathetic.

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Harry
2/23/2014 02:50:11 am

Dude, Where's My Spearhead? Or:

Trevor and Bryan's Excellent Adventure Until It Turned Bogus

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Rev. Phil Gotsch
2/22/2014 03:53:38 pm

Ummm … What the … ???

I watched this episode from start to finish but I saw and heard NOTHING about "Mary Magdalene" or "the Mound Builders" …

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Only Me
2/22/2014 04:54:11 pm

"And so, after a season..."

I guess you're going to say you missed that part of the *article*.

We now return you to "Phil-ibustering", already in progress.

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Dave Lewis
2/23/2014 02:12:21 pm

Phil-ibustering, now that really funny!

Only Me
2/23/2014 05:53:13 pm

Thank you. Just trying to spread a little humor all around.

KIF
2/22/2014 06:29:19 pm

I think you found the episode to your liking, Reverend.

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Matt Mc
2/23/2014 01:17:12 am

"He finishes the season by drawing on his glowing map in his lab to connect random sites into a giant M with a crossed center, a symbol from his new book, which he believe stands for the Mary Magdalene Holy Bloodline conspiracy"

I believe if you read it correctly, Jason is saying the M drawn at the end of the episode the same symbol that Wolter uses in his book Akhenaten to the Founding Fathers: The Mysteries of the Hooked X.

See what he did here was a little research and with knowledge from the research he was able to find a correlation between the show and the book.

Does it reach beyond the scope of the show, no since Wolter did draw the symbol.

Is the symbol discussed on the show no it is discussed in Wolter's published material and presented in his book Akhenaten to the Founding Fathers: The Mysteries of the Hooked X.

I hope that clears thing up Rev. It is amazing what can be done with a little research and understand of Wolter's theories and how he uses both his books and show to tie them together.

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Jason Colavito link
2/23/2014 01:30:31 am

It appears to be the stylized AVM symbol Wolter discusses in chapter 6 of Akhenaten, though it is slightly different (missing the upper "v"), as though he were drawing an incomplete one meant to indicate more is to come.

Jason Colavito link
2/23/2014 01:31:52 am

Oh, and it also resembles some of the loose "Hooked X" symbols Wolter ascribes to pre-medieval times.

KIF
2/23/2014 03:20:01 am

Seeing the "X" is reminiscent of seeing the Turin Shroud everywhere

The Other J.
2/23/2014 11:24:08 am

I wish I could one-up Matt Mc's comment.

Tara Jordan link
2/22/2014 05:18:53 pm

Bryan Axtell:"they took it from us".Scott Wolter:"I`ve never heard anything like this before...".
A simple answer.
According to Governmental Archaeological Heritage Policy Framework,archaeological heritage is a source of inspiration and knowledge, it is the policy of the Government to protect,manage & preserve archaeological resources & discoveries
By protecting and managing archaeological resources through policy,legislation and programs, the Government will achieve a general symmetry with international standards and provincial,regional & national measures.The importance of archaeology rests not only with well–intentioned policies; it is also a matter of law.

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RLewis
2/23/2014 02:24:07 am

As for the timing... I assume the film crew must ask for permission to film in the area. I'm sure that tipped the Park Services off about the subject and potential "stolen" artifact.

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Matt Mc
2/23/2014 03:27:18 am

From my experience from shooting in public parks you need to apply approximately 3 to 6 months in advance to get the shooting permit. Permit authorization is also very specific as to the day and time or day. It is a simple process but with a show like America Unearthed I think the schedules they do are rather loose since throughout both season they have avoided in shooting in places where a permit must be granted. Honestly it says less about being denied a permit (seldom are they refused unless it shows a military or other gov't building or like place) and more about Committee films saving money and time and the possibility that they shoot with a chaotic schedule.

Tara Jordan link
2/23/2014 05:02:03 am

I am far from being a specialist but I participated in two archeological digs (Nan Madol/Pohnpei & Aksum/Ethiopia) during the first year of my M.Sci.
Aside from the particular academic/scientific guidelines for conducting field archaeological excavations,field works & procedures are directly under the (and supervised by)local authorities (ministries of education/sciences,etc...& a whole bunch of local administrative departments).There is nothing remotely surprising when & if,local/regional/national/federal authorities claim property over national treasure or historical heritage.I don't understand Scott Wolter reaction.

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An Over-Educated Grunt
2/23/2014 07:29:44 am

Tara -

Keep in mind, it was evidence of a conspiracy to suppress the truth when the state of Minnesota insisted that the "giants" be re-buried. It was evidence of a conspiracy when they couldn't just go traipsinng willy-nilly through a national forest to visit the Maya site. It was evidence of a conspiracy to suppress the truth when in the 1940s the Navy used an island where no one had a reason to look for Norse artifacts as a gunnery range. For that matter, it was evidence of a conspiracy to suppress the truth when the AU production team failed to consult a tide table and visited a shoreline rock at high tide.

I actually had a very visceral, angry reaction to this part of the episode. Every national park I've ever visited, it's very clearly stated that you do not remove artifacts. In most of the Civil War parks, it's a straight felony if you're caught on the park with a metal detector. It's not just parks, either, it's any federal land; I saw a construction company with whom we were otherwise quite satisfied stiffly fined for failing to disclose that they had found a dozen Minie balls at the north end of the initial Confederate line at Petersburg - and this wasn't on the battlefield park side of the fence, this was on post. Minie balls aren't exactly priceless historical artifacts, either, and Civil War relic-hunting is a common pastime in Virginia, so they thought they were in the clear... but they were on federal land when they started playing keepsies.

The same thing holds doubly true for national parks, at least in the US, and it's one of the reasons the "Smithsonian conspiracy" maddens me so. Those artifacts are held in the common trust for the entire citizen body of the United States, they aren't being hidden away because of some institutional Gollum, going "my precious" over the Bat Creek Stone.

Grunt link
2/23/2014 03:41:16 pm

I would strongly encourage the conspiracy theorists to apply for Pro Bono work at archeological sites;).They dont have the slightest idea of what is going on in the fields

Tara Jordan link
2/23/2014 04:37:17 pm

Grunt
My apology, I realized I put your name instead of mine

An Over-Educated Grunt
2/24/2014 01:27:04 am

Absolutely, and most places in the US have historical societies, many of whom sponsor open-to-the-public dig days where you can come out and work a sieve under professional supervision. Very few people show up to the follow-on "assemble pottery shards" days, funny enough. Virginia was great in that respect, there were open-access archaeology sites all over the state even outside that season. You could even get down in the working grids if you were willing to make a few extra phone calls.

Matt Mc
2/24/2014 02:06:39 am

Grunt,

They are great about the open the public digs in MD also. I have a friend who runs a ton of them along the bay and eastern shore areas. He actually gets pretty good turn out and says people really enjoy them. He also runs fossil hunts down near Calvert Cliffs that have great turn outs. Right now he is working on doing one in my area on the Battle of Bladensburg since there are a few of old building that are being torn down he is getting the county help get his access to the sites before they start that rebuilding.

Veronica link
2/25/2014 08:34:01 am

So...was Scott ever allowed to see the spearhead? Did the park services study it? What are their findings? I felt like he left leaving the kids who found it hanging in the lurch. Most places, when you make a find like that will make a replica of your finding. What if the kids want to name it?

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Jeanne
2/26/2014 10:32:11 am

Which is what makes me think this is another scam

Just Sayin'
2/22/2014 05:41:19 pm

As a flint-knapper for over 25 years, I can say with a certain degree of personal experience that the "spear point" in question is made of obsidian from Mexico, and hundreds of them can be purchased today at any number of tourist trap/gift shops throughout Mexico. In addition, the style is non-functional and non-ceremonial. It could also be easily dated by a process called "Obsidian Hydration".

Just Sayin'

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Dan
2/22/2014 06:41:58 pm

Wait. You're saying that two white stoners in Hawaii didn't happen to make a great anthropological find four years ago that will change the history of North America? Color me shocked. Shocked, I say!

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Dan
2/22/2014 06:45:35 pm

You can also buy them pretty easily on ebay:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/like/130576676019?lpid=82

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severina
2/23/2014 12:10:31 am

*snort*

Mark E.
2/23/2014 12:45:37 am

From the pictures it looked a little too perfect, you would expect some mineralization if it had been laying on the ground for a long time.

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yakko
2/24/2014 11:25:51 am

Being a long-time stoner...let me rephrase that: As someone who picks up interesting rocks and such, and uses them as interior decoration, and buys nice pieces of artwork at cheap prices, I somehow came into position of an obsidian spearhead. It's obviously a recently-carved gift item or conversation piece, and was sold to me as such. Now I'm thinking of burying it out in the woods somewhere, and then digging it up, with a camera crew in tow of course, with the claim that Aztecs settled New England, and that's why we have so many Latinos around here. :-)

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Michael Harris
2/22/2014 07:00:58 pm

I love how a fragile spear point can lay on the ground for 1000's of years, next to a volcano, and still have it's crisp, sharp edges. If one didn't know that this show has to be 100% true and factual then one might think it was planted because it looks like a million other "tourist points" you can purchase all over Mexico and the south.....Man it was hard typing that "100% true and factual" part, I was laughing way too hard.

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severina
2/23/2014 12:06:13 am

Meh.

The first thing I thought when the two stoner dudes with matching sunglasses turned up was "what a couple of douches," then I thankfully fell asleep.

Thus far Season 2 hasn't stirred up any righteous outrage like last season and I almost miss the loud guffaws I made when he first brought up Ogham. Hopefully this fancy M will be good for a couple giggles.

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Michael Haynes
2/23/2014 12:29:42 am

I actually liked this episode. Having said that, I realize that what I find interesting doesn't necessarily appeal to everyone else, so it wouldn't surprise me if this episode turned out to be low-rated among AU's general audience. By now, viewers should recognize Scott's operatus modi (I probably wrote that wrong): He's only interested in Pre-Columbian contact within the present-day territorial US, he doesn't pass up an opportunity for a physical challenge or bashing Columbus's discovery, and everyone in academia and the government is personally against him. Once you get past that, the subject matter of this episode was fascinating.

This was the third episode this season (in addition to "Vikings in America" and "Mammoths in America") where AU dealt with plausible hypotheses about early contact, and I think they did a better-than-average job because it left me more curious than cynical. Trevor and Bryan didn't strike me as the kind of guys who would have the forethought to plant a modern Mexican spearhead in Hawaii to perpetuate an American-Polynesian connection, and I liked hearing about the sweet potato- and liguinstic similarities. I thought the 3-D printer was pretty neat, too (it was definitely a better visual aid to the audience than showing Cat Scan slices of the Kennewick skull). Jason, you are right when you wrote that Polynesian achievements and exploration have been long overlooked and ignored, and that needs to change. Perhaps America Unearthed is not the best venue to introduce a general audience to the subject, but there hasn't been too many other shows doing it.

I'd like to see if they return to this next season. I have noticed, though, that every time an episode makes a step in the right direction, the following episode takes fifteen steps back (example: "Mammoths in America" followed by "The Lincoln Asassination.")

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Clint Knapp
2/23/2014 01:43:05 pm

Modus operandi, or just M.O. for short.

What I find amusing is that for the time frame proposed by the Great Boat Trade Conspiracy, Southern California would've been Mexico anyway. AU is literally only interested in the current borders of the United States of America.

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Veronica link
2/25/2014 08:42:05 am

I would just like to know what is going on with the spearhead. I would like to see him follow up on it. Also, I am Native American and have been told my entire life that sweet potatoes came from us, not South America. So which is it?

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Matt Mc
2/23/2014 01:09:06 am

What interested me about the finding of the spearhead is right before they introduced the people who found it they said the last time the volcano erupted was 1790 or so and that the spearhead was found inside the mouth of the dormant volcano.

So if that was the case, how did the spearhead survive a volcanic eruption?

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Jason Colavito link
2/23/2014 01:16:13 am

Great catch. That does sound like prima facie evidence that the spearhead is from after 1790.

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RLewis
2/23/2014 02:45:38 am

I think there was some confusion here - or maybe I heard it wrong. The last eruption of Mauna Kea (isn't that where it was found?) was about 4,600 years ago. Kilauea (on the Big Island) erupted in 1790.

Matt Mc
2/23/2014 03:29:06 am

I am pretty sure they said 1790, I am sure however your are correct. I will watch that part again when I get home.

Mark E.
2/23/2014 03:43:02 am

They were at Haleakala National Park on Maui. The volcano there last erupted sometime between AD 1480 and 1600, a 1790 date was revised after better radiocarbon testing.

Mark E.
2/23/2014 02:20:31 am

That is a bit of a "gotcha". The USGS is showing 10 eruptions over the last 1000 years for the East Maui Volcano.

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Laetitia
2/23/2014 02:02:46 am

In the sentence in the first paragraph starting with "The focus of...," it should read "too recently", not "to recently." Great blog post!

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Mandalore
2/23/2014 02:02:47 am

The Polynesians did settle Madagascar. Genetic, linguistic, and cultural studies have linked an early portion of the population of the island to Polynesians.

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The Other J.
2/23/2014 11:33:51 am

I think that evidence suggestions Madagascar as one point of origin for the people who eventually became the Polynesians.If I remember correctly, there is some DNA evidence tying Madagascar to Taiwan, and then some indigenous people of Taiwan to early Polynesian people. (But that Taiwanese point of origin is still being explored.)

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yakko
2/24/2014 11:39:39 am

I know a young man who as an infant was adopted by an American couple of my acquaintance. He's always stuck out like a sore thumb in the Swedish Lutheran parish he grew up in, and when I asked, everyone said he was "Chinese". Now he's 19 years old, and he's taller than I am (and I'm not exactly short!) and big and husky - definitely not what you think of when you hear "Chinese". In a conversation with his parents, I discovered that he was born in Taiwan. I wouldn't be a bit surprised if the ethnic native Taiwanese (as opposed to those whose ancestors came from the mainland) were Polynesians of some kind, judging from this sample of exactly one Taiwanese person I've ever met. I have met a lot of Hawaiians, though, and he definitely looks more like them than he does mainstream Chinese.

Mark M
5/8/2014 04:30:02 pm

I may be 3 months late, but in case I'm not the only one who likes to read the comments sections to months-old articles, I'll try and clear things up.

Polynesian is a branch of the Austroasiatic language family, which originated in Taiwan (Chinese only settled there en masse starting in the Ming dynasty). From there, an offshoot branch went to the Philippines, Indonesia, and Malaysia, and from there, more offshoots went as far as Polynesia and Madagascar.

Polynesians in particular spread out from the are around Fiji, and the Austroasiatic languages of Madagascar show similarities to some found on Borneo.

Titus pullo
2/23/2014 03:07:53 am

Not a bad episode. I didn't fall asleep but we already know about the sweet potato controversy, it's in all the somewhat fringe theories like Gavin Menzies. I would like a show on the Polynesians, what they did was remarkable. I also can say AE has made me very interested in paleo Indian research. The debates when modern humans got here and how is really fascinating and not as simple as what our high school text books said. I'd give he season a C with some shows that were interesting, some contrived and some just boring. Then again given alternatives, AE is better than msnbc or cnn or the oprah channel or lmn where they run movies on vengeful wife's offing their no good husbands, ha ha

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Pacal
2/23/2014 04:40:29 am

Jason you say:

"But there was in fact a connection between Polynesia and South America, and that was the sweet potato, an American crop that was also cultivated in Polynesia before the Europeans arrived and shares the same name, kumara, in both Quechua and Polynesian languages."

Actually it is more complicated than that. The actual standard name for the plant among Quechua speakers is apichu. And in fact Spanish accounts such as from Garcilaso de la Vega give this has standard name of the sweet potato. It appears that the word kumara used to designate the sweet potato is used by Quechua speakers in part of Ecuador and is not known before the 19th century. It appears that the native people of the coast of Peru and Ecuador, who were not Quechua speakers did not use anything like the name kumara for the sweet potato. (See Voyagers to the New World, by Nigel Davies, William Morrow and Co. Inc., New York, 1979, p. 201.)

As for Heyerdahl's larger idea. Well. Aside from his silly fascination with blond and red haired mummies in Peru. Heyerdahl almost continually denigrated the navigational abilities of the Polynesians. To him it was just "obvious" that Polynesia "must" have been settled from the Americas. The Polynesians could not in his opinion have sailed against the prevailing winds and currents, they simply could not have done that. Only Americans, who were in fact descendants of blond, blue eyed, "white" inhabitants of the Atlas region of North Africa could have done it by deliberate planned voyages. Oh and the Polynesians were descendants of north Pacific Coast Indians who were blown out to sea to Hawaii.

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Rev. Phil Gotsch
2/23/2014 04:54:45 am

Some of these questions and findings have come and gone through the years without a lot of public attention …

E.g., at least thirty years ago, as I recall, there was a brief announcement on a BBC show ("Archaeology Today") by Sir Robert Eversley of his discovery of clear Polynesian influence in a tomb complex at El Ara in the Third Dynasty of EGYPT (ca. 2600 B.C.E.) … !!!

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Matt Mc
2/23/2014 05:17:45 am

Monty Python was always such a great watch.

Are you saying that AU claims are of the same value of Monty Pythons, I would disagree Monty Python was far more entertaining.

:)

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Mark E.
2/23/2014 05:27:30 am

That does beg the question of just how tall are you Rev.?

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Only Me
2/23/2014 05:33:31 am

That would be impressive, since two theories of how the ancestors of the Polynesians spread (Express Train and Slow Boat models), have those ancestors expanding out of Taiwan c. 3000-1000 BCE.

I'd really like to know how Polynesian ancestors, on the other side of the continent, were able to influence the Egyptians, just as they were beginning their Pacific expansion.

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Matt Mc
2/23/2014 05:44:04 am

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrNRH1szgFQ

Only Me, judge for yourself

Only Me
2/23/2014 06:00:04 am

I was going to say I was convinced...but they destroyed all the evidence! No Polynesians at Egypt, no Sumerians at Abu Simbel! A curse on all short TV hosts and archaeologists!

Monty Python...just as good today as then.

Matt Mc
2/23/2014 06:03:29 am

The question now is who is more absurd Monty Python or Scott Wolter?

Only Me
2/23/2014 06:17:01 am

I'd answer that honestly, but I fear that I would be accused of making just another "snarky, personal attack". But then again, maybe that's answer enough.

Tara Jordan link
2/23/2014 06:25:28 am

I think Scott is realizing an old dream.Being a controversial figure,yet a successful business man.He wants to "change the course of history" (aka rewriting history as we know).He sees himself as the innovator,the challenger,the man who relentlessly struggle to bring the truth to light.Scott is that perpetual kid who looks at the stars,thinking "one day I`ll be an astronaut".On top of it,there is the ultimate rush in being a "real life Indiana Jones".I don't see any problem with that,we desperately need individuals who think outside the box, who are willing to take risks. I am merely asking him to do it the right way.

Matt Mc
2/23/2014 06:30:11 am

I quite agree Tara.

Sadly I think in a lot of the cases, it is hard to separate the ego from the quest.

Mark E.
2/23/2014 06:44:29 am

At least with Monty Python we found out that the Holy Grail is in Castle Augh and guarded by Frenchmen.

Tara Jordan link
2/23/2014 07:11:43 am

Matt.
Aside from personal antagonisms & emotional conflicts,we are only humans,we are not perfect.We all have particularities (negative & positive) that forge our characters & ours personalities.Scott is probably a very decent guy,but he is blinded by his own fanaticism (jusqu'au-boutisme,in French).He refuses to adhere to academic & scientific protocols,yet reacts extremely violently when confronted over the very principles he violates.Scott needs the maturity to reevaluate & reassess what he does.Autocriticism is always very productive.I am trying to get beyond the initial stage of "personal attacks" & negative appreciations.Subsequently,I think Scott & myself succeeded in having an unpassionate debate on his blog.

Matt Mc
2/23/2014 07:25:39 am

Tara that is what I was referencing when I mentioned ego. And it goes well beyond Wolter. When I worked Discovery Health CME - which was a broadcast continuing education program for hospital professional that used to be on the now defunct Discovery Channel - I met many a top research scientist and doctors all the shows where panels and discussed topics like fibromyalgia to Alcoholism. One of the thing I found out from working on the show is that people whose work mostly agreed with each other and working in the same direction would argue on and off camera only because they felt the need to protect their ego.

I do not think Wolter is stupid at all. I think he is quite smart, in fact I believe his actions are a lot more calculated then most people believe. And there is nothing wrong with that, he saw a way to make a name for himself and make money and went for it. I think Wolter's response to critics and disagreements is deliberate, like I have said before he has built a good shield to hide behind if you criticize him you are supporting the status quo, and he will not be the status quo. He knows he does not need to be peer reviewed, he does not need to argue in support of his claims, all he needs to do is shout and say they are wrong and they are trying to shut me up. I do not even know if he believes what he says. He however does not need to, this is not about anything else than finding a niche and making a living from it. He most likely knows that it will be short lived also and is going to make the most of it. I don't think science ever really mattered to him when it comes to his fringe findings it simply was a market that needed someone more grounded than the others and he does it well.

Matt Mc
2/23/2014 07:30:39 am

I ment to say the now defunct Discovery Health Channel

Tara Jordan link
2/23/2014 07:59:42 am

Matt
Indeed,I agree with you,but Scott has to understand that his simplistic vision of academia is not reflective of reality.Most amongst us have no ambition,we are just doing what we love,& this process comes with a lots of personal sacrifices.
Although I understand the concept of ego,for individuals like myself,there is no practical application from (& for) both a personal & professional perspective.Contrary to many female in the field of anthropology(a field dominated by men;),I deliberately decided to avoid the "casual" & popular studies,& instead focus on a very obscure multi disciplinaries discipline.(I specialize in Antinomianism & the studies of social,societal,moral,cultural,religious,political transgressions).I am aware that I will never make a name for myself,for what I actually do.There is no potential Nobel prize or scientific hall of fame nomination,for individuals like myself.I just want people outside academia to realize that everything doesn't orbit around ego`s & personal ambitions.

Matt Mc
2/23/2014 08:10:41 am

I have the same expectations or desires as you in the case of ego, I wish others had that same. Perhaps I am jaded, working in TV for all these years has helped that. But I do agree with you on what would be ideal. I also sadly see that in the quest to get the message out people get caught up in the attention and the need to defend themselves to keep the attention. You in my experience are unique i(in a good way) in the sense that you just want to help inform and I hope that stays with you. I just come from a world where ego drives everything, TV (whether it is news or a cartoon) is and always will be driven by ego and it is the nature of the beast.

Gunn
2/25/2014 05:50:42 am

I think being missed here in this line of conversation is the fact that Wolter does actually believe in some of his observations. It's not all simply a game for money.

I'll add that I personally believe Wolter is correct about some of his findings, while other ideas are quite personally revolting to me. But, if Wolter is correct about SOME things, this throws a monkey wrench into the above conversation, and it inevitably comes back to trying to judge his motives.

Yet it may be a sort off curatorial abstraction in his own mind, twisting, intermingling, consorting with both truths and speculations...good luck at pinning down what he actually does believe. "There is more to history as we know it," that's the bottom line.

I tend to believe him in a few things...albeit mostly defined by his earlier work in MN, and even here, I have serious misgivings about some crucial issues relating to land claims vs. simple memorial...which also relates to something either having been purposely buried or not. I think Wolter's initial premise was SKEWED, overreaching into the very importance (or not) of a specific geographical spot--which can be considered as both a false interplay and a poor beginning assessment.

The harm, in this case, is that attention was given where it wasn't deserved, and consequently, that has ended up hampering a sooner, further, farther reach westward, where there exists a greater location of geographical significance, as defined and understood by the presence of a multiplicity of "oddities."

I'm talking about a false start, and a new, fresh look at far inland waterway convergences, as a geographical spot to rediscover a medieval Nordic presence here in America. Yes, I see things other people don't see; I see "The Birthplace of America" from a Euro-centric viewpoint, as being in SD. Wolter missed it, and I missed it in part because of him...until now.

At this point, the evidence is for those who have eyes to see, and this "insight" is not for the faint of heart, or for those unable to speculate reasonably or logically. But we can and must separate out the nonsense, which Jason is adept at doing...while simultaneously exploring racism in historical contexts. And, as can be seen in the recent and remarkable example of Tara, ideas can be espoused without shameful, accompanying acrimony.

For example the Stoners didn't need to be called "f--kheads" or "douchbags" earlier, above, as there are other words available to discourage them without such rancor--which is thankfully quite rare on this blog these days.

Jason D.
2/25/2014 05:51:11 pm

Give a blind man enough darts and eventually he will hit the dartboard, if only by shear luck. If Wolter turns out to be correct here and there, it doesn't erase the fact that his methods are severely flawed.

Denis Gojak link
2/23/2014 07:32:04 am

Jason,
Thank you for an excellent summary of the 19th-20th century theories about Polynesian origins. Glad to see you used part of Suggs's well-known quote, but the full thing is worth repeating as it drives the point home really well.

"Heyerdahl's Peruvians must have availed themselves of that classic device of science-fiction, the time-machine, for they showed up off Easter Island in A.D. 380 led by a post-A.D. 750 Tiahuanaco material culture featuring A.D. 1500 Incan walls, and not one thing characteristic of the Tiahuanaco period in Peru and Bolivia. This is equivalent to saying that America was discovered in the last days of the Roman Empire by King Henry the Eighth, who brought the Ford Falcon to the benighted aborigines."
R. Suggs, The island civilizations of Polynesia, 1960, p. 24.

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Petr J
2/23/2014 07:41:28 am

Jason-

You wrote in reference to Kennewck man "...We know that Chatters sees a connection to the Polynesians that other anthropologists attribute to Clovis-era genetic diversity, lost around 6000 BCE when there was a dramatic shift in population demographics..."

Is there any actual proof in the record that these "other anthropologists" have? Or is this just mere conjecture or politically correct babble from these "other anthropologists?"

I assume, if you have any actual evidence you might share it?

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Jason Colavito link
2/23/2014 08:01:17 am

It's an area of dispute. Anthropologists who surveyed the extant remains of people living prior to 6000 BCE have noted the greater diversity of skull size and shape. There are competing explanations, which are of course interpretations: It can be seen as genetic diversity among the founding population, or as multiple waves of immigration from one or more lands. Since genetic studies indicate connections to Asia, the former interpretation is more widely held than the latter.

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Petr J
2/23/2014 10:55:41 am

It sound like the actual record of men (homo sapiens) in America pre-6000 BC has holes in it big enough to drive a Mack through.

Of course, any men in America alive in 6000 BC (or alive today for that matter) is descended from men who walked out of Africa 60,000 to 80,000 years ago.

J.A.D
2/24/2014 05:01:36 am

is this like the way the Neolithic Revolution hit Europe?
We have the population upswing of the Beaker culture
reducing the earlier hunter/gatherers to isolated and/or
coastal areas. if maize did a likewise at about 5000 B.C
as agriculture & irrigation led to a population explosion
and more permanent settlements, why be surprised???

Will
2/23/2014 08:09:55 am

To begin with, a point to clarification: I believe your starting premise is incorrect and baseless, namely that this episode is somehow inferior because it is "an idea that mostly emerged as a way of dollar cost averaging the expense of a trip to Hawaii last seen in the Menehune episode. " Where do you evidence this suggestion? In fact, the production company behind the series visited Hawaii on two separate occasions.

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Matt Mc
2/23/2014 08:20:22 am

It is not uncommon when planning a show that travels to make sure you use a location at least twice in a season. I don't see anything wrong with this and is common practice. AU used DC in several episodes ect. Most travel logue shows do this, I see no reason for AU to be exempt on using a location more than once to save on production costs.

I think in this case it was less to justify the travel to Hawaii but maybe H2 or the producers at Committee films saw some of the complaints about last season not focusing on non European explorations of the Americas and made sure they had at least 2 this season. Choosing the Polynesians was easy since it makes since.

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Jason Colavito link
2/23/2014 08:31:32 am

It appears that you are Will Yates, a producer and writer for America Unearthed. Is that right? If they went to Hawaii twice, then I will correct the opening sentence. It does not change, however, the fact that I had no idea how to provide background on something that was not a pre-existing fringe claim.

If you are in fact Will Yates, we would all be very interested to learn how America Unearthed is written. Would you be willing to share?

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Clint Knapp
2/23/2014 02:13:10 pm

Not to nitpick, but "the production company behind the series" does not necessarily indicate a full filming crew/cast trip to produce actual content for the show. Can you elaborate further as to who was involved in both trips?

The statement as given could mean as little as the producers themselves, or a location scout, making a trip before the rest of the crew.

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The Other J.
2/23/2014 08:55:53 am

"DNA tests conducted in 2013 on a sweet potato"

That may be one of my favorite lines from any of these reviews. I'd love to see a graph like the human evolution graph that shows the development from proto-human up to modern human, but with sweet potatoes.

I was a little surprised that Kennewick Man was linked to Polynesians by Wolter without any European intrusion. He's still wrong about the provenience of Kennewick Man, but it seems like a shift in his Eurocentric proclivities. I wonder if that's going to hold.

There's one thing I just don't get about this episode: I understand that the spearhead is likely a fake, probably a trinket lost by some other climber; and I understand that any artifact found in a national park is by law government property. What I don't follow is how the finders supposedly reported said supposed artifact to the authorities, and then heard nothing for four years. Nor do I get how or why the Hawaiian National Park service, or whatever agency it was, is following Scott Wolter's itinerary. That whole scene felt more manufactured than most.

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Tara Jordan link
2/23/2014 11:28:19 am

Radiocarbon and DNA evidence for a pre-Columbian introduction of Polynesian chickens to Chile
http://tinyurl.com/28euj9n
Radiocarbon and DNA evidence for a pre-Columbian introduction of Polynesian chickens to Chile
http://tinyurl.com/28euj9n

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Pacal
2/23/2014 12:22:09 pm

Aside from the fact the find is still controversial. There is the fact that if it occurred it occurred just slightly before the Spanish came and further that pre-Columbian remains of chickens seem to be extremely rare in the pre-Columbian Americas. All those thousands of excavations of pre-Columbian sites have failed to turn up much in the way of chicken bones. So it appears that not only was the introduction of the chicken late, if it was pre-Columbian, it does not seem to have spread very widely, pre-Columbian.

In fact these studies like the Sweet potato one would seem to indicate that the diffusion of these traits was relatively "late".

Tara Jordan link
2/23/2014 03:17:46 pm

Pacal
I am just providing links.Feel free to draw interpretations from the papers.Personally, I won`t because I can`t.I don't have the expertise.

Veronica link
2/25/2014 08:57:16 am

Ok Tara, if you and "just me" do not believe the entire premise of this show, why the blog? I mean, if you truly can not wrap your minds around the Fact that Columbus was not the first non-indigenous person to come and live among the native Americans, why watch the show? Why discuss each episode? I am Native American, have heard the oral stories and belief them to be true. I have seen sights that date to pre-Columbus. If you don't believe, a tv show won't convince you, a blog won't convince you, you will have to get off your rear ends and go exploring and speaking with scientist who specialize in each area.

Only Me
2/25/2014 09:38:25 am

I'm not sure how to answer you're comment, Veronica, since you didn't even get my handle right. I will anyway.

You must not come here often, because I have no idea where you get the notion that I cannot wrap my mind around the fact that Columbus wasn't first. Of course he isn't. How else would you explain L'Anse-aux-Meadows? I watch the show for many reasons; I come to the blog for the same.

I have no "belief" pertaining to history. However, if anyone comes along making grandiose claims that will "rewrite history", they had damn well better have evidence to back them up. They should also follow established protocol, control and methodology concerning the evidence, if they're going to call themselves scientists.

The premise of the show is sound; it's the alleged research and evidence that is questionable. Loopy hypotheses without anything to support them is not history or science, no matter who the spokesman may be.

Tara Jordan link
2/26/2014 09:00:21 am

Veronica
"If you don't believe, a tv show won't convince you, a blog won't convince you."

I am trying to be as modest as possible,but as a PHD student I have standards & expectations exceeding the standards of a "TV show".

Tara Jordan link
2/23/2014 11:39:32 am

The Other J
I remember seeing an article on Google Scholar on the Polynesian sweet potato DNA tests.

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Gunn
2/24/2014 04:08:25 am

The Other J., feeling sorry for you in your mental fog, I return briefly to hopefully enlighten you.

I might say, first though, that a couple of comments in this blog-line are clearly inappropriate to Jason's New Rules. I'm talking about the vicious stabs into the hearts of the stoners.

Anyway, here's my take, for what it's worth: at first, the Park officials were not interested in the object because it didn't fit in with established Island history. They may have determined right away that the claim was preposterous, and so dismissed the "discovery" as an irritant.

But then things had to change when Wolter was to get involved. The Park people had to scramble to make sure issues were going to be dealt with openly and by law, since Wolter was going to publicize the supposed finding, and it could no longer be as casually dismissed as before.

In other words, it's my opinion that the Park officials were basically forced to change their position and "get serious" once Wolter was to get involved. By law, the artifact should have stayed at the site until officials would come to see it, hopefully in situ. At the very least, the object should have been confiscated, but it wasn't.

At first, the officials probably dismissed the "find" because it was laughable and they didn't want to give it any credibility, but the situation became more serious when they learned the whole world would soon know about it. Consequently, they had to take a more "responsible" mindset about it, which included taking possession of the object. Wolter appeared to be surprised, but he shouldn't have been. The Park officials simply took the spear-point because they were forced to, even though they didn't want to be involved at first because it seemed nonsensical and a waste of time.

Now they must do something with the spear-point. They didn't want to before, so they let the stoners keep it. But now they MUST study it, rather than Wolter. See, they didn't want Wolter to possibly blow things out of proportion (in their minds) about the spear-point and "front them off" about previous lack of responsibility in the process, so they MUST now make their own public determination in order to cut Wolter off at the pass.

They have been forced into doing this by Wolter showing up on the scene. I think Wolter makes park officials nervous, generally speaking. Sometimes they don't like the spotlight, for whatever reasons.

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J.A.D
2/24/2014 05:16:45 am

Thanks, Gunn! It does look like someone from on high took
the whole situation more seriously. Stoner is rough, the dudes
actually were acting more Beatnik or like the extras on a vintage
Beach Blanket Bingo movie. Yes, its like a Scooby Doo moment
as Scott is told that maybe D.C talked with somebody local
and a reversal happens. The show did have a reconstruction
of a Chumash boat, one wonders how often the Polynesians
have been as bold when navigating the Pacific. Were there
numerous ocean voyages contemporary to the pyramids?
Is A.D 1431 too recent a date? Did China's First Emperor burn
all records of earlier travels via an imperial edict? Are today's Polynesians the heirs to a seagoing culture of eons of time?

Dan
2/24/2014 06:07:44 am

Yeah, I admit the f-bomb was a bit harsh, but the entire "spearhead" thing was so absurd its frustrating that anyone is giving it any more than a laugh. I realized that Jason is confined to keeping things a bit serious as he looks over his shoulder at the Wolter-protectors, but we can be truthful about just how utterly ridiculous is the whole "spearhead" affair.

That being said, I think you're spot on about the reaction of the Park Service confiscating the "spearhead". Wolter pretty much left them with no choice. But when they're forced to spend time and money to evaluate it and ultimately conclude that its a $5 Mexican gift shop souvenir likely left behind by a tourist, its still not going to satisfy Wolter who'll scream "coverup" for the conspiracy nuts.

Jason Colavito link
2/24/2014 11:52:04 am

It's hard to tell from a TV image what something really is. It sure looks like a modern souvenir spear point to me, but I'm not an expert in Mexican lithics, and I don't want to say anything I can't prove. Without examining the piece, or being able to consult scholarly literature about it, there isn't really much to go on other than superficial impressions.

Dan
2/24/2014 01:08:15 pm

There's an abundant amount of evidence that its a simple gift shop souvenir transported by a tourist from Mexico:
1. The 1790 eruption of the volcano
2. The pristine condition of the item
3. The amateur nature of the discovery
4. The amateur nature of the persons making the discovery
5. The lack of any attempt to date the item
6. The lack of ANY other similar evidence EVER discovered in Hawaii in 500+ years of post-Columbian archeology.
7. The ubiquitous nature of obsidian spearheads in Mexican gift shops, ebay (ie http://www.ebay.com/itm/like/380597425874?lpid=82), etc, and the obvious similarity to the item in this episode.
8. The Park Service's failure to take the item seriously until television crews forced them to have to seize it.
9. Scott Wolter's involvement

The last item could be seen as a bit of humor, but its not. In a recent episode, Wolter listed a half-dozen known hoaxes as "authentic". Its safe to assume at this point that any archeological find that he's vouching for is almost per se fraudulent.

Its really just an Occam's razor. You can believe that all of recorded history is incorrect and the lack of any empirical evidence of an historical theory is overturned by a haphazard amateur discovery of a "spearhead" that survived a volcanic eruption in pristine condition, or you can believe that a common tourism trinket was picked up by a couple of guys on a hike.


Harry
2/24/2014 10:38:02 pm

Gunn,

First, welcome back! If only to visit.

Secondly, your explanation of the Park Service's conduct makes extraordinary sense. Of course, I wonder whether it will admit that it sat on its hands for four years.

Finally, I suppose that you are complaining in part about my movie title parody post, although I view that as a light-hearted poke in the ribs, rather than a vicious stab in the heart. That said, I have certainly said and done things that could inspire jokes at my own expense. In any case, if I stepped over the line, I did not mean to do it.

Harry
2/25/2014 05:11:40 am

To avoid any misinterpretation of my attitude, my "Welcome back! If only to visit" was a reaction to Gunn's "I return briefly...." I am certainly not saying that I would not welcome him back on a longer term basis.

Dan
2/23/2014 10:01:33 am

I'm still chuckling over the "spearhead", the stoner discoverers, and the obvious souvenir trinket nature of it.

There was the "American Stonehenge", Burrows Cave, KRS, Spirit Pond Runestone, the Roanoke Dare Stones, Bat Creek Stone, etc, but of all the fakety fakes and silly hoaxes that Wolter has "investigated" this is probably the one with the highest level of absurdity. ITS A SOUVENIR TRINKET FROM MEXICO, you fucking idiots.

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Rev. Phil Gotsch
2/23/2014 10:19:53 am

But, seriously, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls --

We KNOW that the Polynesian people WERE intrepid voyagers of the open Pacific Ocean .. and the Vikings DID cross the Atlantic in their open boats to North America … MANY times …

Our ancestors DID get around more interestingly and farther range than we formerly thought ...

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Clint Knapp
2/23/2014 02:23:41 pm

And yet, the show in question uses "evidence" with lengthy documentation to the contrary without paying any mind to said contradictions or, often, the personal financial motives of the people brought on the show to promote their "evidence".

As has been pointed out before, Phil, this isn't a diffusionist forum. It's a review of a television show.

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Rev. Phil Gotsch
2/23/2014 04:41:11 pm

Yes … And one of the CENTRAL questions that keeps on cropping up in the "America Unearthed" TV shows is … cultural diffusion ...

Only Me
2/23/2014 05:47:31 pm

You exaggerate. The only episodes that raise the question of cultural diffusion are the ones about the Maya, the Menehune, the Aztecs, the serpent mounds, the Solutreans and the Polynesians. That's six out of twenty-six episodes.

As Clint alluded to, Scott is far too willing to say, "I'm convinced (insert people of the week's episode) came to the United States (insert estimated time frame) before Columbus." This is based on great leaps in logic and the manipulation of what little evidence exists to fit the preconceived narrative.

Clint Knapp
2/23/2014 05:52:54 pm

Those claims are examined as they happen in the show, Phil. Your initial post here was a condescending attempt to remind us "ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls" of voyages made for which there is evidence of and to use that example as excuse to continue accepting anything else you or your "friend and professional colleague" wish to extrapolate on.

Stick to preaching, Phil, but the fact remains that this was just another of your attempts to turn the tide of discussion toward diffusionism in general rather than sticking to the topic at hand. Unless you start actually saying something meaningful instead of condescending to everyone, I'm done with you. It serves no purpose to continue arguing the same points.

Good luck in your quest to distract us all from the fact AU and Scott Wolter use bogus data to support unsubstantiated claims.

Rev. Phil Gotsch
2/24/2014 02:06:02 am

Clint --

As a (thus far) lifelong student of anthropology and of human history, I find the questions of "diffusion" vs. "separate invention" very interesting and still unsettled ...

Rev. Phil Gotsch
2/24/2014 03:54:34 am

"Only Me" --

Obviously, the "America Unearthed" TV shows are short interesting sketchy investigations of claims and possibilities of *other* cultures and peoples having had direct pre-Columbian contact with "The New World" …

That is what the shows are about … I think they have positive value in stimulating and encouraging interest in and discussion of North American history and pre-history … Anyone who finds them to be of little to no such value is free to change the channel ...

Tara Jordan link
2/23/2014 03:26:30 pm

"I myself know nothing, except just a little, enough to extract an argument from another man who is wise and to receive it fairly..."
Socrates to Theodorus.

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An Over-Educated Grunt
2/24/2014 01:35:55 am

Really? The Vikings sailed farther than the Moon?

Because right now, that's the current known limit of manned exploration.

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Matt Mc
2/24/2014 02:13:16 am

The Vikings made it to the moon? is that one of Alan Bulter theories? I wonder if the Nazi's just simply occupied the old Viking Bases when they fled to the moon. It all is beginning to come together.

Mandalore
2/24/2014 02:47:32 am

The Nazis on the Moon had best look out for: Jews in Space! (Where's the reverb key on this thing?)

An Over-Educated Grunt
2/24/2014 02:51:06 am

In space, no one can hear you scream, but it's irrelevant, since once your ribs are cracked and your lungs pulled out your back in sacrifice to the Victory-Giver, you can't scream anyway.

Rev. Phil Gotsch
2/24/2014 10:45:46 am

LOL …

As I recall, the "Jews in Space" adventure was already well documented in "Spaceballs" … (or did I just dream that … ???)

Jason Colavito link
2/24/2014 10:50:04 am

I believe "Jews in Space" was the last segment of the coming attractions at the end of "History of the World Part 1."

Matt Mc
2/24/2014 11:09:23 am

That is correct Jason along with a preview of "Hitler on Ice". Some much better comedies in the 70's and 80's. That said I am greatly saddened by Harold Ramis passing today, he was a great writer, actor and comedian. I hope he is out there busting ghosts wherever he is. :)

CFC
2/24/2014 03:27:04 am

I would like to know if the discovery of this spearhead actually happened, or was it made up for the episode? Also, was the Park Service even involved?

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Rev. Phil Gotsch
2/24/2014 03:43:26 am

Any artifacts taken out of their context become seriously problematic, which is not least of the reasons important areas and places and sites are (supposedly) protected by very strict laws and regulations ...

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CFC
2/24/2014 03:50:49 am

Perhaps you missed my point Phil. I'm curious if this was all made up?

Rev. Phil Gotsch
2/24/2014 03:56:52 am

Obviously I have no personal direct knowledge of what if any reported facts were "made up" or exaggerated or any such thing …

But again … We know with CERTAINTY that the Old Polynesians were amazing sailors and navigators ...

An Over-Educated Grunt
2/24/2014 03:58:43 am

Which has what exactly to do with the question of "WAS THIS SPECIFIC INCIDENT COMPLETELY STAGED?"

Rev. Phil Gotsch
2/24/2014 04:06:30 am

Anyone who has direct personal knowledge whether any portion of the show was "staged" is free to come forward … Otherwise, what is the bloody point … ???

Matt Mc
2/24/2014 04:17:08 am

Is called speculation, you know what Wolter does all the time. Only difference is that CFC is just speculating if Wolter did it he would claim it as fact.

Jason Colavito link
2/24/2014 04:12:59 am

I have a request for information in to the Park Service in Hawaii. If and when they release a statement, I'll let you know.

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Rev. Phil Gotsch
2/24/2014 04:34:17 am

Jason --

Excellent …

J.A.D
2/24/2014 05:25:15 am

thanx!
cooooool
most likely
the arrowhead
was not deliberately
planted by AU
and is left
there by
some
one...

as in recently?
even so,
the sweet potato
is what it is...

CFC
2/24/2014 01:32:13 pm

Staging the episode can take on many forms.
One possible scenario is these young guys are innocent victims who got excited about a spearhead and Committee Films somehow got wind of it. Then when the issue with the Park Service developed, the producers saw an opportunity to create a controversy. So, instead of making contact with the proper authorities and portraying them as public servants doing their job, they scripted it to make the Park Service staff look like the bad guys.

Rev. Phil Gotsch
2/24/2014 02:35:09 pm

"CFC" --

WOW … !!! You're suggesting that the National Park Service is somehow working closely with Scott Wolter and "America Unearthed" to create situations for the TV shows … ???

CFC
2/24/2014 03:39:29 pm

No Phil! I'm suggesting that the producers scripted the show in a way that made the Park Service look like they did something wrong when in fact they did their job. Not unthinkable given that the program regularly accuses academics, the Smithsonian Institution, the U.S. Government and others of wrongdoing and/or hiding something. Not much of a WOW Phil. Just a thought.

John R.
2/28/2014 04:13:22 am

I think it was not a coincidence it was the season finale this happened. I learned of a TV show on a major network where they actually fake bury artifacts in the ground and then the metal detectors go "beep beep". "We've got something." That was another show I heard that about recently.

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J.A.D
2/24/2014 05:50:04 am

China's First Emperor, the dude contemporary to Hannibal,
the fellow who had commissioned the terracotta warriors...
HE DESTROYED LIBRARIES AND DYNASTIC ACCOUNTS!

If there were accounts of extensive voyages across the Pacific
and Indian Oceans, they went up in smoke when he rewrote
history. The long version is more correct than the short version.
The express train rapid expansion via the sea and long voyages
verses a shore hugging "hen and chicken" expansion of small
settlements? Hunter/gatherers are migratory. Farmers are often
rooted in one place. There are two schools of thought, clearly...

(((((((((((((((DRUMROLLS)))))))))))))))))))

"What is perhaps interesting is Jones’s discussion of the academic response. He says that specialists in Pacific archaeology are themselves divided between a “long” and “short” chronology for Polynesian settlement. This gets technical, but the long and short of it is that the “short” chronology wouldn’t see the settlement of Hawaii until after the alleged arrival in California, which is problematic for Pacific scholars. He also says that while Europeans are receptive to the idea of Polynesian contact with the Americas, American archaeologists have been resistant because of fears that “our case denigrates Native Californians by implying that they were incapable of developing these innovations on their own (which we do not).” This is something we’ve seen over and again: When experts do not accept a controversial finding, the proponent accuses them of crying racism or being dogmatic, even when the objections are based on an interpretation of archaeological evidence or construction techniques."

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J.A.D
2/24/2014 06:05:39 am

Outriggers have pontoons. The boats the Chumash had
are planks sewn together sealed by tar. If one has a lattice
of poles over four Chumash boats that also have tar and
planking sealing their tops, you might have four hermetically sealed pontoons. You could end up with a raft and pontoon
way to transport a large amount of goods if you have a tight
seal that holds up to the waves of the ocean. The skin boats
of the ancient Celts had not the same carrying capacity as
a much larger craft. The thread about the Solutreans in the
North Atlantic dovetailed down to a discussion of supplies.
The Chumash and the Polynesian techniques in tandem had
the capacity in a very Ice Age or B.C date to do in the Pacific
that which was thought impossible in the story cold Atlantic.
Cover over a Chumash boat in the Chumash manner and
then build a structure up on it. Prior to Carthage, someone
controlled the Pillars of Hercules, in a manner like the old
Byzantines the Bosporus. The Chinese sailed greatly prior
to the First Emperor and the Polynesians sailed further than
they. Toss in Egypt's eastern sea fleet contemporary to Cheops
and one rounds out the diffusionist equation in a tidy manner.
the


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DAN D
2/24/2014 06:16:24 am

I found the info from PBS in this link to be interesting, It might be a little dated but good none the less. Click on the sections parts if interested,

http://www.pbs.org/wayfinders/polynesian.html

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J.A.D
2/24/2014 07:22:03 am

just did. saw things said about sweet potatoes!
http://www.pbs.org/wayfinders/polynesian6.html

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Rev. Phil Gotsch
2/24/2014 01:28:11 pm

Huh …

I'm not that familiar with fake obsidian projectile points reportedly offered for sale in Mexican gift shops …

But … IF the point found in Hawaii LOOKS like one of them … then what might that say about the observed similarities between "Clovis" points and "Solutrean" points … ??? Did one of those cultures offer points in a gift shop for visiting tourists … ???

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An Over-Educated Grunt
2/25/2014 02:59:22 am

That what is observed is a similarity, not an identity? That a broken argument in one place does not create a stronger argument in another? That any fraud weakens every other case that relies on marginal evidence?

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Rev. Phil Gotsch
2/25/2014 04:42:37 am

The observed fact of "cultural diffusion" is noted initially when somebody notices that "this" looks very MUCH like "that" … It shows up in "material culture" -- lithic traditions, design of a boat, etc. …

Do observed similarities PROVE that something was borrowed from another culture … ??? Of course not … But they're suggestive ...

Michelle L. Hamilton link
2/24/2014 03:35:21 pm

The NPS had every right to reclaim the spearhead from Trevor Carter and Bryan Axtell since they had illegally removed the artifact four years ago when they discovered it--if their story is true. The NPS has a strict policy against relic hunters and treasure seekers, and if a person is caught in the act can be arrested or fined plus having the items uncovered seized. On a recent visint to Gettysburg National Battlefield Park I noticed several signs that announced that relic hunting was illegal on NPS property. What they should have done, if they really cared about the historical integrity of the sight and the preservation of the artifact (which I doubt, regardless of the tattoo) would have been to have left the artifact where it was and to have recorded where they found the item (GPS position for instance) and then notify the NPS. It was interesting that, according to Carter and Axtell that the NPS was not interested in their report, indicating to me that they were suspicious of the validity of their report and in my opinion only took interest when Scott Wolter announced that he was coming to Hawaii to film and were concerned (rightly) that after the episode the park would be besieged with treasure hunters looking for artifacts that "prove" Wolter's claims. On another note, I am glad for a change to see an episode that featured a group coming to Pre Columbia United States that were not white Europeans.

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Colin Hunt
2/25/2014 05:43:31 am

I think we would all like to see a healthy direct dialogue on this blog, or another independent arena, between people like Jason and the alternative theorists. Many theorists’ outrageous views have ultimately been proven correct, such as Galileo and more recently people like Stephen Hawkin, but those people knew they had to pass the necessary critical scientific peer review before their theories could be accepted, something current alternative theorists appear to resist and reject, to their own ultimate detriment.

Don Quixote characters have their views, but usually reject the idea that their views, publically expressed , become publically open to peer and public scrutiny and open debate.

It appears such current characters are overtaken by their own events, and probably their personal ethics, in order to gain notoriety and income. This often appears to leave their apparent acolytes, church or otherwise, behind and trying to defend their own position, however credible, in defence of an indefensible situation while their friend has actually accepted and taken advantage of the situation. Paraphrasing a typical defenders response, when they are losing an argument and in defence of their friend, they respond with phrases such as “lighten up, it’s only a TV show,” that destroys their well-intentioned and supposed educational response and, no matter how credible they were before, destroys their creditability and puts them into the fringe incredible culture. That’s where they decided to be. That’s where they are now, credible and respectable before, now. NO! Great people and respected before, but now just a fool.

Let’s enjoy the serious discussion. Let’s not get side-tracked by apparently religious supporters of whacky theories who appear to have other personal and political agendas to boost their ego and are hanging onto to an personality for their own ego to get ego notoriety

I suspect we are all p**sed off by an apparently religious person who consistently puts people down, like “ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls –“.” We are not “girls or boys” . That guy plays semantics, wants attention, at the expense of the friend he pretends to protect. Like his friend, it’s all about him getting attention. Church Guy? Where is humility? Educated but cannot accept when you are wrong. Pedantic arguments about dictionary definition’s, etc,. Whoever his is, he’s a joke who tries to divert attention to himself not realising he is destroying his-self. Good luck Rev, you have removed yourself from the credible.

Rev., you are master of sitting on the fence. One day you will stop playing semantic games and get off the pot. Your religion says you fight for truth. So do it. Get off pot. Truth or friendship? Stop supportive assumptions and attacks. You say you are qualified so put your money where your mo0uth is. Evidence to support Walter Mitty or get off this site. You are boring everyone trying to be clever, which you are not.

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Rev. Phil Gotsch
2/25/2014 05:50:02 am

"Colin Hunt" (whoever you are) --

I am a (thus far) lifelong VERY serious student of anthropology and history … I don't SEE a "fence" there that requires "sitting" between "friendship and truth" …

As a SERIOUSLY open-minded student, I have LONG been interested in questions of cultural diffusion … Why is that a problem for you … ???

You post a lengthy condescending paragraph (above) deriding ME (for whatever reasons of your own) rather than discussing the QUESTIONS at hand, which are raised via the episodes of "America Unearthed" …

Your choice; not MY problem ...

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An Over-Educated Grunt
2/25/2014 06:18:30 am

"Rev. Phil Gotsch" (whoever you are -

Let me explain, in detail, why you rub several people here, myself included, the wrong way. I will not link back to any posts to give examples. If you truly wish me to, I can, to demonstrate the difference between personal attack, and supported statement. Since you object to long paragraphs, I will even bullet-point it.

For a "lifelong VERY serious student," you have serious blind spots when it comes to examining the quality of evidence, and the supporting arguments, for your hobby-horses, and you routinely ignore the problems associated with them.

You routinely mistake hypothesis and conjecture for fact (and, lest I be called out on the difference between fact and truth, a fact can be proven or disproven, unlike, say, "what if Vikings rode unicorns to Manitoba in the Han Dynasty?").

You routinely come across as incapable of intelligent discourse, resorting to an endless line of "leave Brittney alone!" if it's about Scott Wolter, or "it promotes discourse" about the show, or, in the case of your own beliefs, "well it COULD be true," followed by hours of circular arguments and repeating your positions.

Your statement that America Unearthed promotes discussion is, perhaps valid - if the same can be said about feces-flinging monkeys promoting discussion of sanitary improvements.

Your writing style is execrable; in six sentences, you used six sets of ellipses and six words capitalized for emphasis.

You are incredibly blind to how condescending you yourself come across, such as "ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls."

You wear your ordination like a badge, like it should give you some additional authority in discussing topics that have nothing at all to do with your religion.

You seem incapable of understanding that the Internet is by definition anonymous; we have no evidence that you are in fact Phil Gotsch, let alone that Phil Gotsch is an ordained anything.

You are of course free to dismiss this as someone posting on a blog, but I strongly suggest you take a close look at it, and decide for yourself whether my criticism is warranted.

And no, I'm not Colin Hunt. Colin yes, Hunt no.

Rev. Phil Gotsch
2/25/2014 06:21:22 am

"Over Educated Grunt" --

LOL … Well, then … Just go ahead and discuss the questions and hash over the issues … Why not … ???

An Over-Educated Grunt
2/25/2014 06:24:26 am

Bring something to the table worth discussing and I'd be happy to discuss it. In the meantime, any stoner working on the sixth year of his English degree can speculate, and that's the very most you bring of value.

Rev. Phil Gotsch
2/25/2014 07:47:52 am

"Over Educated Grunt" --

Okay …
*Somebody* in an entry (above) made a VERY definitive statement about the obsidian point purportedly found in Hawaii --

"IT'S A TOURIST TRINKET FROM A GIFT SHOP IN MEXICO … !!!"

Oh … ??? How does one KNOW that … ??? Has anyone pontificating in this blog actually EXAMINED the (purported) Hawaii point … ??? (hint: NO) … compared it side-by-side with a KNOWN tourist trinket from a gift shop in Mexico … ??? (hint: NO) …

Someone (above) also mentioned relative dating of obsidian artifacts by measuring surface hydration … Has anyone from this blog fest DONE that test on the (purported) Hawaii point … ??? (hint: NO) …

See … ALMOST everybody who comes to this blog is just absolutely prima facie CERTAIN that almost anything and everything depicted in the "America Unearthed" TV shows … is … WRONG -- BY DEFINITION …

As a SERIOUS (thus far) lifelong student of anthropology and history, I keep an OPEN mind regarding MANY of the questions raised ...

Dan
2/25/2014 07:53:47 am

I later posted a series of reasons why its an obvious fake. For those who didn't already read this:
"There's an abundant amount of evidence that its a simple gift shop souvenir transported by a tourist from Mexico:
1. The 1790 eruption of the volcano
2. The pristine condition of the item
3. The amateur nature of the discovery
4. The amateur nature of the persons making the discovery
5. The lack of any attempt to date the item
6. The lack of ANY other similar evidence EVER discovered in Hawaii in 500+ years of post-Columbian archeology.
7. The ubiquitous nature of obsidian spearheads in Mexican gift shops, ebay (ie http://www.ebay.com/itm/like/380597425874?lpid=82), etc, and the obvious similarity to the item in this episode.
8. The Park Service's failure to take the item seriously until television crews forced them to have to seize it.
9. Scott Wolter's involvement

The last item could be seen as a bit of humor, but its not. In a recent episode, Wolter listed a half-dozen known hoaxes as "authentic". Its safe to assume at this point that any archeological find that he's vouching for is almost per se fraudulent.

Its really just an Occam's razor. You can believe that all of recorded history is incorrect and the lack of any empirical evidence of an historical theory is overturned by a haphazard amateur discovery of a "spearhead" that survived a volcanic eruption in pristine condition, or you can believe that a common tourism trinket was picked up by a couple of guys on a hike."

Rev. Phil Gotsch
2/25/2014 07:58:22 am

Who was that guy who simply flat out REFUSED to look through Galileo's telescope because he already KNEW that none of the planets *out*there* had "moons" or "rings" … BY DEFINITION ...

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Dan
2/25/2014 09:00:40 am

I don't know, "Red Herring"?

Oh wait, no, that's the fallacious argument technique of always changing the subject when you're cornered.

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Rev. Phil Gotsch
2/25/2014 09:09:34 am

"Dan" --

Yes … !!! It's common in this part of the volcanic crater, unfortunately … Rather than discussing the questions and 9purported) facts and issues and intriguing possibilities … too often … it ZIPS to haranguing some person or other …

I dunno …

E.g., has anybody in this blog SEEN the (purported) Hawaiian obsidian point close-up in person, alongside a Mexican tourist shop trinket counter example … ??? Ummmm … No ...

Rev. Phil Gotsch
2/25/2014 09:10:55 am

obviously should be, (purported) rather than 9purported)

An Over-Educated Grunt
2/25/2014 09:39:15 am

Phil, do you not know how basic logic works? You don't have to prove that the more-likely outcome is false. You have to prove that the less-likely outcome is true. You can call it "keeping an open mind" all you want, but the funny thing about completely open vessels, they also tend to be empty.

Rev. Phil Gotsch
2/25/2014 10:23:08 am

"Over Educated Grunt" --

Yes … I DO know how the process of discovery is SUPPOSED to work … It involves looking at EVIDENCE … and evaluating EVIDENCE … It ISN'T supposed to involve snarky comments about PERSONS ...

duh

An Over-Educated Grunt
2/25/2014 11:05:37 am

Of course, because "duh" is snark-free.

I walked away, played with my kids, and ate dinner before posting this, because I know it violates the personal-attack policy, and I've decided I just don't care in this case.

You, sir, are an idiot, a braying jackass of a man who defiles the name of better men every time "Galileo" dribbles from your incontinent mouth. There is no purpose in arguing with you, because every time a point is made, you simply move the goalposts or shout about how people are hurting your poor, innocent feelings. You are a sanctimonious, mealy-mouthed hypocrite who fails to apply the same standards across the board. That is, after all, the definition of hypocrisy, but you are so thick-skulled and addle-pated that I thought perhaps repeating it would help get it through to you. You yourself routinely engage in snark - duh - and personal attacks, unless you consider your remark about "that guy who simply flat out REFUSED to look through Galileo's telescope" to be a random comment you put out in the ether, in which case, we can add vapid and fatuous to the list. Actually, let's just go ahead and put vapid and fatuous on the list, because nine out of ten (that's 90%, since you went to grad school, Phil) of your posts are completely meaningless, and half of the remaining posts are repetition of something else you already said.

I could go on for quite some time, but I think as far as I'm concerned, Oliver Cromwell said it better than I ever will. You do know who Oliver Cromwell is, right? You're a serious, or should I say, SERIOUS, student of history, after all.

"You have sat too long for any good you have been doing lately ... Depart, I say; and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!"

Rev. Phil Gotsch
2/25/2014 11:28:51 am

"Over Educated Grump" --

WOW … !!! Just, WOW … !!!

You do nicely illustrate the very points I make about the quick resort to insults and personal nonsense snark …

Again … duh ...

Only Me
2/25/2014 09:14:53 am

The America Besmirched Formula

Scott Wolter, Phil Gotsch, an academic and a skeptic walk into a library. They make their way to the aisle marked with "X". Scott declares that the X is derivative of the Hooked X and proof of Knights Templar having been there previously, making a land claim. Phil adds a diffusionist observation that the similarity of the X with the Hooked X is "suggestive". The academic laughs in their faces and the skeptic proves, using public archives and the Dewey decimal system, that the idea is crap.

In the end, you're left with a pissed off geologist, who proclaims the academic and the library are in cahoots, as part of a conspiracy; the skeptic is just a lying hate-blogger who only takes cheap shots. Phil pipes in, asking everyone to discuss the issue and refrain from snarky personal attacks, all while ignoring the ludicrousness of the bogus claim and Scott's allegations towards the academic and skeptic.

You are now free to laugh, as you see fit.

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Reid
2/25/2014 09:31:24 am

Well done!

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An Over-Educated Grunt
2/25/2014 09:50:37 am

I'd laugh, if it were just a joke.

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Gunn
2/25/2014 12:40:43 pm

Dude, Grunt, you just snarked yourself into a deletable offense, no doubt encouraged on by the dutifully spiteful Only Me--an unfashionable trouble-maker here.

Grunt, a longer, more thoughtful walk may have been in order, or at least a conversation with Tara, who seems to have gained manners here--I mean, compared to before! If she can change so dramatically, you Sir, can change a bit away from the harsh words, too, especially considering that this is the new expectation. You can be angry without offending the common woman's sensibilities.

This reminds me of the Three Stooges episode, where Curly races down the stairs to catch the falling cake, only to then fall and mash his face in it. "Tiny," who desperately wants a boyfriend, defends him when others begin making fun of him: "I like him just the way he is," she says, "frosting and all."

Such humorous loyalty should be admired.

Rev. Phil Gotsch
2/25/2014 12:50:27 pm

Gunn --

Indeed … What IS it about "America Unearthed" that seems to get some people so irrationally completely unhinged … ??? When I come to this blog, I for one CERTAINLY don't expect "The Spanish Inquisition …" [ .. insert Classic Monty Python Skit .. ]

Only Me
2/25/2014 02:51:31 pm

"We now go to Ollie Williams with an America Unearthed report. Ollie?"

"THERE'S A TEMPLAR ON MY OREO!"

"Thank you, Ollie."

An Over-Educated Grunt
2/26/2014 12:37:46 am

Gunn, that's a fine glass house you've built yourself there, and I especially admire that you've decided to use it as a stone launch pad. If anything I said offends the common woman's sensibilities where you live, they apparently breed them weak there. Meantime, I see no reason to be preached at by someone who routinely called anyone else obsessive over one-fifth of his total work, while admitting he didn't read the rest and constantly hijacking discussion to talk about his pet projects. You describe yourself rather vociferously as Christian; I suggest you tend to the log in your own eye before dealing with the mote in mine.

Gunn Sinclair link
2/26/2014 05:55:18 am

Phil, the reason people don't like you here is because of your dogged loyalty to Scott Wolter. You will be chided for almost anything you say, just for being here on this blog as Wolter's friend.

Couple this with the purposeful slander you keep experiencing, and it is all too easy to see that Jason is no longer doing what he proposed in keeping the tone here civil. Once that fine line is abrogated--as seems to be the case, it is difficult to regain. Grunt got away with some pot-shots and you took a face full of lead shot, which I thought was banned.

As for myself, I defend Wolter only for the bits of truth he brings, whether accidental, deliberate or somewhere in between. I have my own grievance with him, which has everything to do with a pure message being delivered. I don't like unnecessary distractions about the KRS, and I don't pick and choose about this.

However, I sincerely believe it is important to "brighten the corner, where we are." Hopefully, some darkness will be penetrated here, as we voice our opposition to snarky over-skepticism, which is the inherent nature of the beast here.

"Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication." - Leonardo Di Vinci, born in 1452.

Being a bold inventor myself, born exactly 500 years later, I intend to carry forward this torch, for the sake of the Stone, which is presently CHANGING history as most know it. The Stone, being simple and yet sophisticated, is like a huge ship taking her sweet time CHANGING the course of history as most know it. A few of us already know the truth...you, me, Wolter and some others who haven't been completely blinded by the crude art of being overly-skeptical.

Unfortunately, this truth as we know it will be hard to defend here, if not impossible. Only discovering new, in situ evidence will work. My prediction is that Scott will be redeemed if and when he concentrates his attention BACK along the Whetstone River, in nearby SD.

In other words, Runestone Hill was only an inland navigating mapping point along a straight compass line from Whetstone River area to Duluth. The future :discovery" will not be at Runestone Hill, which merely turned into a mapping point/memorial stone site, having nothing in my opinion to do with a semi-continental land claim, which is this distraction.

Existing evidence shows that Medieval Scandinavians spent much more time along the Whetstone River than they did at Runestone Hill, which is why Scott needs to concentrate his efforts westward. I very sincerely believe there is something there for him to discover, once he begins poking around.

The Whetstone River was the primary landing area for Norse people, according to the vast number of land-claiming stoneholes. Runestone Hill may have represented an earlier land claim, but not represented by the KRS, which is a memorial stone, originally unburied. The stoneholes encircling Runestone Hill existed before the KRS, in all likelihood. The marking-up of the peninsula-island knoll was most likely to create a recognizable mapping point--but an individual may have marked the hill area for future ownership, too, along with it being an inland mapping point.

But my main point is that the message of the KRS should remain as simple as it was meant to be, nothing added, and nothing taken away. Then logic can rule, predicated upon scientific, mathematical odds. This is the way to discover something new and up-to-date, with in situ provenance. But we cannot ignore and disrespect the evidence, when it comes.

Jason Colavito link
2/26/2014 06:11:09 am

Gunn, I am spending 6 hours a day correcting and indexing page proofs. I don't have the time to sit here reading every single response. You could all just stop bickering with one another and make my life a bit easier.

Dan
2/26/2014 06:53:42 am

I do feel bad for you, Gunn. It seems that your belief, however ill-conceived, is genuine. Wolter seems a few years ago to be your savior -- finally a guy with some credentials willing to stick his neck out in support of KRS.
But as Wolter's credibility erodes weekly and slips through your hand like sand on a beach, it becomes ever more unlikely that KRS will be considered to be anything more than an elaborate hoax, as it has for so many decades.

Gunn
2/26/2014 06:59:54 am

Okay, Jason...I guess it'll be like "New Rules" in Bill Mahr's program. The old rules are replaced, comically, with new rules. Oh well, it was nice to see the concentrated politeness here for a while. It was good for impressionable Tara (formerly "Tara the Terror), but the tough old goats here are another matter entirely, apparently.

Anyway, Only Me and Grump, you should stop the purposeful harassing and give Jason a break. The name calling quickly gets out of hand, otherwise.

Phil, you're going to need to make yourself skinnier here--turn yerself into The Thin Man, I guess.

Rev. Phil Gotsch
2/26/2014 07:12:23 am

Gunn --

Yes … What I find both ironically amusing and tragically predictable in these blog spots is the way so many posts simply flat out demonstrate the very hidebound authoritarian outlook denounced by Scott Wolter …

E.g., somebody (above) confidently pontificated re: the (purported) Hawaiian obsidian point -- "IT'S A TOURIST TRINKET FROM A GIFT SHOP IN MEXICO …" -- without the benefit of having actually seen and EXAMINED the point in question, whether by itself or in a side by side comparison with a KNOWN "tourist trinket from a gift shop in Mexico" …

One can argue with the conclusions drawn and stated in the "America Unearthed" TV shows … One can make sincerely useful suggestions about how better to have proceeded with an inquiry … One can think about the presented 9purported) facts and draw one's own conclusions …

But the knee-jerk responses and the mocking and insults have NOTHING to do with any honest seeking of better understanding ...

Gunn link
2/26/2014 07:29:22 am

Dan, yes I am completely sincere in believing the KRS is genuine, but I basically heard about the KRS and Wolter at about the same time, insomuch as I bought his X book at the Runestone Museum the first time I went there in June of 2010.

Since that time, I have gained an immense personal knowledge about the many non-provenance evidences connected with the notion of these early land acquisition attempts. Much of the information is not common knowledge, having been gained through field explorations coupled with an interest in photography. I know full well my narrowly-focused views seem shoddy to most here, but I also know that this is because my head is chocked full of information and details unknown to most others.

For example, I recently discovered that Runestone Hill is actually a geographical "inland" mapping feature...by discovering that it lies on a precise mapping line between the Whetstone River and Duluth. This explains the nature of the KRS being deposited on Runestone Hill in association with medieval mapping. It was put there because the survivors thought people would be coming back to that specific spot. See?

But, Jason has already been gracious in not saying anything about my earlier KRS post, so I don't want to press my luck here. If you have genuine questions representing genuine bewilderment, please don't hesitate contacting me via email, by clicking on the green Gunn. Thanks for your interest.

Gunn link
2/26/2014 07:33:56 am

Oh, sorry, no green Gunn, only an arrow.

Rev. Phil Gotsch
2/25/2014 12:23:13 pm

"Only Me" --

Why do you waste your times watching episodes of "America Unearthed" … ???

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Only Me
2/25/2014 01:43:36 pm

Phil, why do *you* waste your time coming to this blog, if it offends your sensibilities?

Rev. Phil Gotsch
2/25/2014 01:51:11 pm

"Only Me" --

I originally started coming here because I did a "Google" out of curiosity, wondering what was being said *out*there* about "America Unearthed" …

Only Me
2/25/2014 02:44:09 pm

I've watched AU since the beginning, thinking it would be a series that explored archaeological discoveries in American history. Sadly, I was disappointed, when it became obvious it had more in common with Ancient Aliens, than a series like Mysteries at the Museum.

If it had half the value of a program like The Bible's Greatest Secrets, I doubt there would be half as much criticism levied against it.

Besides all that, if I'm going to read and hear about belief in the latest absurdity, I like to know where and how such belief starts.

Rev. Phil Gotsch
2/25/2014 02:53:42 pm

"Only Me" --

Fair enough … Now … Let's ALL just keep a level head and a civil tongue when ever in this blog we discuss the (purported) facts reported in "America Unearthed" episodes … ???

Fair … ???

Only Me
2/25/2014 04:01:26 pm

I'll agree as soon as you concede that you don't make such pleas for civility unless it's directed at someone like myself.

This plea was missing when I was called "dutifully spiteful" and an "unfashionable troublemaker", nor was it at the forefront of your mind when you said that "some people" become "so irrationally completely unhinged" by America Unearthed.

Remember, Phil, ALL is inclusive. Fair?

Rev. Phil Gotsch
2/25/2014 04:15:37 pm

"Only Me" --

You and I AGREE to discuss only the (purported) facts and the issues and questions raised in "America Unearthed" episodes … Perhaps others will follow our example of reason and civility …

Only Me
2/25/2014 04:39:12 pm

I can agree to that. I don't know about the last part, something about wishes being fishes, but let's see.

Rev. Phil Gotsch
2/25/2014 04:43:52 pm

"Only Me" --

LOL … Okay …

We both endorse the "Respect-Matic" -- NO scaling, gutting, cleaning required … !!!

"WOW … !!! That's great RESPECT … !!!"

Tom
2/25/2014 11:16:05 pm

For goodness sake people, stop feeding the damn trol!l ;)

Matt Mc
2/25/2014 11:49:04 pm

Well said Tom.

Martin R
2/27/2014 12:31:11 pm

I love Bob Dylan's "Blood on the Tracks," especially the tune "Idiot Wind."

Harry
2/25/2014 11:18:55 pm

I think that the plausibility of pre-Columbian contact increases exponentially when the claim is made on behalf of a culture with a known history of trans-oceanic voyaging in the direction of the Western Hemisphere. Therefore, I would not be surprised if the Vikings did reach the eastern coast of the United States. Likewise, I would not be surprised if the Polynesians reached California.

I also think that it is certainly possible that the Chumash adapted Polynesian boat-building technique to the traditional Chumash boat design. To cite a somewhat analogous example, Sequoyah was influenced by European writing systems to invent a unique Cherokee writing system that was then used to print books and newspapers in Cherokee, using technology (the printing press) appropriated from European settlers.

On the other hand, I hope that even the Reverend can see that Scott Wolter is dead wrong about Kennewick Man being a Polynesian, for the reasons stated by Jason in his review (is that factual enough for you, Phil?).

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Rev. Phil Gotsch
2/26/2014 01:51:41 am

The precise ethnic identity/affinity of "Kennewick Man" remains unclear … But physical anthropologists who are NOT Scott Wolter had already noted "Polynesian" as one possibility …

Anthropologists don't have a large enough sample of "Paleo-Indian" remains to be able to definitively KNOW who was and who was NOT in North America in those early times ...





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Only Me
2/26/2014 08:21:14 am

If KM was from the group that eventually became the Polynesians, that would help explain the similarity. So far, all we've been shown is a skull comparison. What about the rest of the skeleton? Perhaps NAGPRA was invoked too aggressively before a more conclusive examination could be done.

As to the spear point, we may not get a comparison with the Mexican trinkets, since I don't think it was stated where it's analysis was carried out, and it's current whereabouts are unknown.

Your statement about the Paleoindian remains could also be applied to any alleged pre-Columbian visitors. The fact that there doesn't seem to be evidence of cultural exchange/diffusion from most of these alleged contact events suggests that if such contact occurred, it must have been brief. The case is weakened by the lack of any historical records, which is puzzling, given the tradition of claiming new lands in the name of the king and the idea of North America being a land of plenty.

Maybe there's something out there, but I don't know if AU is the vehicle to find it.

Rev. Phil Gotsch
2/26/2014 08:51:34 am

"Only Me" --

Obviously, the "America Unearthed" TV shows are produced and distributed as … interesting … and suggestive … NOT in any respect definitive …

This fact is not least of the reasons I am infamously CAUTIOUS in drawing conclusions quickly …

"I don't know … " is an honest carefully considered response to the many questions raised and (purported) facts presented … I remain OPEN minded (which drives the knee-jerk armchair critics and skeptics NUTS … But that is their problem, not mine …)

Gunn
2/27/2014 04:21:11 am

...and then there's always this to consider. Wow! Look at the many new angles of approach.

http://discovery.mnhs.org/MN150/index.php?title=Browns_Valley_Man

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Gunn
2/27/2014 04:33:17 am

http://bhoffman.edublogs.org/2006/08/18/browns-valley-facial-reconstruction/

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Stoneguy
2/27/2014 05:37:45 am

I found it odd that a spearhead found in the open , had no patina? the photo's showed a brilliant shiny piece of goldsheen /green obsidian supposedly lying in the open on a volcano for several hundred years( he purposed no date) which looked like it was freshly knapped? not possible

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Rev. Phil Gotsch
2/27/2014 12:18:57 pm

As Scott Wolter so well documented in his THOROUGH study of the Kensington Rune Stone, a freshly exposed rock/mineral surface DOES weather over time … The rate varies from one rock/mineral to another and does depend upon local conditions ...

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Matt Mc
2/27/2014 02:28:21 pm

And that does not apply to the alleged Spearhead, one that we only assumes exists. Wolter himself did not see the stone, only the same photo we saw, he did see a tattoo. I think it would be fair to say that until the Park service says something about the stone it is safe to say that it is a non point. We have evidence the shows it could be a less than it claims, the time line of volcanic activity says it at most is a few hundred years old.

And going back to the most important point no one has seen the stone. It is just assumed that it is what it is being said it is. No one can look at it for weathering because no one has seen it.

And that stone has nothing to do with the KRS, nothing at all except they come from the ground. So what ever has been found of has not been found with the KRS is not relevant to this discussion at all.



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Rev. Phil Gotsch
2/27/2014 03:06:11 pm

Okay … We AGREE that NOBODY in this blog can say anything for sure about the (purported) obsidian artifact … not least because nobody here has SEEN it ...

Matt Mc
2/28/2014 03:03:36 am

I guess we could also agree that that would include a certain host from a certain TV show, since he and the producers never saw the said spearhead.

An Over-Educated Grunt
2/27/2014 03:15:20 pm

He may have documented it, but physical weathering isn't exactly news. That's the point with this obsidian spearhead. None of the images we have with it show any signs of physical or chemical weathering, and its presence in a volcano through an eruption without damage is a strong argument against its authenticity.

And I've never seen the Pope in person either, but I'm quite certain he exists, and I can make an educated guess that he's Catholic.

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Rev. Phil Gotsch
2/27/2014 04:04:43 pm

What was the date of that "eruption" and when did it take place … ???

hint: NOT all "volcanic eruptions" are HUGE events, devastating hundreds of square kilometers of surrounding area ...

An Over-Educated Grunt
2/28/2014 12:44:16 am

You know what I love, Phil? When someone who has done "graduate work" lectures me about a field in which I have an actual graduate degree. It's almost as great as being told by a twenty-year NCO with seven hours of art appreciation credits under his belt that he knows what it's like to work on an engineering degree and still make drill every month.

Since the eruption as described took place between 1600 and 1800 (the target date is in the mid-1700s, but I'll give you an extra couple sigmas for certainty, and if that doesn't mean anything to you, come back when it does), it would be post-Spanish contact in Mexico, at which time we are far less likely to see Mexico exporting obsidian anywhere.

Hawaii's volcanoes are generally slow-erupting, acting as a release valve rather than a blowout on the St. Helens-Vesuvius model. The proper term is "shield" volcano, because of their relatively flat, gradually deposited shape, but names aren't relevant to this discussion. Eruptions still produce seismic disturbance, which includes surface disturbance all over the place. Obsidian is strong in direct compression, but is weaker in shear, especially very localized shear, because it doesn't distribute stresses evenly as they are applied. No substance truly does, but obsidian, like most SiO2-based materials, builds stress concentrations very easily, which is what makes it workable for knapping. What does this mean in this case?

The odds of a spearhead being purely axially loaded by a volcano, then remaining purely axially loaded for even two hundred years under deposition and erosion, neither of which is an evenly distributed process, are measurable on the digits of a quadruple amputee eunuch who lost his tongue. I say two hundred because the most recent date we've allowed in this discussion for the eruption is about 1800. There should be some damage, fracturing, or unevenness in the artifact after two hundred years. Instead, the images we have are of pristine, symmetric artifacts that are, coincidentally, very similar to objects found in roadside tourist traps.

Now, since you apparently didn't get the memo, you're supposed to be the civil one here, so I'll say this once and be done with it: You tell us to keep an open mind, then call us armchair critics. I don't even own an armchair. Would you like to tell me how I don't base my criticism on my own expertise again as well?

Matt Mc
2/27/2014 03:30:09 pm

I guess we also could agree that AU is a show made for entertainment purposes and its reason for existence is to attract advertising. It is nothing like shows like NOVA.

So it would be safe to assume that if the show is like other pseudo documentary with a reality style flair style shows on cable (Man vs Wild, Amish Mafia come to minds) that scenes presented as truth could in fact be staged, exaggerated or simply made up to increase the entertainment value of the show (thinking Man vs Wild) simply to increase the entertainment factor of the show which will help the rating increase and draw in more advertisers.

So understanding cable TV history of staging or faking stuff in faux documentary/reality style shows that are made to be entertaining one could assume that the some items that are presented could in fact be less than genuine.

Now I am not saying that AU did fake anything, who knows but since it is a show that is made from entertainment purposes and there is a history of like cable shows do fake things, ONE could speculate that AU does fake things and stages things to help increase the entertainment factor of the show. It would not be to far fetched for a producer to bring in some people who have faked something like a spearhead and have them on the show, it also would be quite convenient that the spearhead would not be available for testing or even to show on camera, it does make great drama and fun TV for some and since that is the ultimate goal of the show one SHOULD keep and open mind. A person could SPECULATE that the spearhead never existed,,

One does have to keep an open mind and keep searching, by doing show one might just find that cable reality based TV shows SOMETIMES play fast and loose with the fact, All in the name or entertaining and RATINGS, cause after all the goal is to make money and nothing else. If someone wanted real science and investigation the would be watching NOVA.


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Rev. Phil Gotsch
2/27/2014 03:33:46 pm

LOL …

Yes … The armchair skeptic-critics of the "America Unearthed" TV shows DON'T base their blog posts on actual expertise or direct examination of the (purported) facts …

It IS just good clean fun ...

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Only Me
2/27/2014 07:00:56 pm

Now, now, Phil, I'll have to disagree with you on that. Tara Jordan, An Over-Educated Grunt and Matt Mc, for example, have all listed their respective expertise when critiquing the episodes. I've never mentioned it, since it didn't seem important, but as a munitions expert of 20 years experience, I laughed during the two episodes where Scott went into an area with unexploded ordinance. Just from the footage we were allowed to see, I could tell immediately he was never in any danger.

More to your point, I've done a lot of research on my own based on the reviews and info contained in many of the comments. Of course, not everyone will, and there will be those who negatively comment just because of Scott Wolter and the show. I would ask that you not consider every visitor in such generalized terms.

Matt Mc
2/27/2014 03:39:03 pm

One could say the same thing about HOSTS of documentary style cable TV shows,

I mean it is important to keep and open mind to such a possibility. As someone who has had a life long interest in TV production and an undergraduate degree in TV and Film production I have learned that one should not believe what one sees on TV. If it seems FAKE it most likely is,

The only thing that is IMPORTANT is money and a few tall tales and faleshood COULD be a quick and EASY way to get it.

One does have to keep an open mind....

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Rev. Phil Gotsch
2/27/2014 03:57:32 pm

BINGO … !!!

I have frequently *winced* at many of the episodes of "How the Earth Was Made" precisely because of the "made for TV" aspects of the presentation, even though the facts presented and conclusions drawn are mostly VERY solid …

So one needs ought to be … cautious … in critiquing these matters ...

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Matt Mc
2/27/2014 04:15:05 pm

SO we are in agreement that AU most likely has FAKED and play LOOSE with the facts for the sake of selling advertising.

And based on the fact that some things are most likely faked the rest can be discounted and chalked up to not being a show about history or supposed history but rather one of speculative entertainment.

That Wolter the character (not in real life) is someone who simply exploits things in order to entertain and increase ratings. It is a character after all and that character has no reason to tell the truth, find the truth, or defend the truth, The only important thing is the establish the character and forward the character as defined by the show. The truth for the character is less important that the money that comes from advertising. So then we should all know that the character and his theories are just fabrications made to sell advertising and to entertain.

It should be taken with a grain of salt, We should not be questioning history as we know it but rather the show as we know it. Simply because it is made to make money and not to educate in any shape or form.

So one should be.. cautious ... in believing these matters....

For most likely they are falsehoods based only in the smallest of truths.

It is nice to see you agree

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Rev. Phil Gotsch
2/27/2014 06:18:05 pm

We DO agree that the "America Unearthed" TV shows ARE TV shows … That appears to be the extent of our agreement ...

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Matt Mc
2/27/2014 11:28:31 pm

But you are so close. Rev

It really is not that far of a stretch to agree that AU is a TV show that operates like other like TV shows and is not beyond stretching the truth. That while some of its topics and items it documents come from the REAL world its take on them is in fact FICTION and should only be seen as that.

Could this FICTION be USED to spark conversations and discussions..... of course.

We have to remember as a life long student of TV Production with a undergrad degree in TV and Film Production (Hell I will even throw my MFA in Film History and Restoration in there) I have a great understand of how money and advertising drives and pushes a program to stage and create events and controversies that will help drive ratings.

Should we EXPECT that AU is different that all of the other like programs, of course not. It after all is reality based fiction packaged as a documentary and nothing else.

Is there anything wrong with this approach, well it really is a ETHICAL matter and each person can reach their own conclusions on that one. The fact is however the MONEY dictates how the show is made and if skewing, stretching, and even fabricating FACTS is needed to make the show more profitable being a for profit production it is not something that would be considered out of the question.

Of course this is all SPECULATION.... but one has too.... keep an open mind.

An Over-Educated Grunt
2/28/2014 01:21:51 am

Since one of the people involved has made "court of law" his standard for evidence, the legal principle is "falsus in unam" - if one area, say, the claims that an island is UXO-laden, when the camera crew isn't in a lick of danger, is provably false, all of the testimony from that source is weakened. So far, we've had a number of known frauds, in at least one case quite clumsy, an infinite number of claims that range from impossible to nonsensical, and an even greater number of specific scenes called out by people as falsified in at least one aspect. We've also had a series of incidents when claims with absolutely no proof found for them within only the context of the series used as evidence for claims thrown out the very next episode. My Latin is pretty rusty, but that sounds less like "unam" and more of a plural.

Leaving aside the television ethics aspect, we have a professional geologist, his words and not mine, lending his professional credibility to ideas that are well outside the scope of geology, never mind his own expertise. He is of course free to do so on his own time, but where he is not free is to say "it's true because I'm a professional scientist." That breaks the code - specifically, Canon 2.2.1 of the Code of Ethics of the American Institute of Professional Geologists.

Matt Mc
2/28/2014 01:56:15 am

You bring up a interesting continuity issue with the show itself. Thinking from a editing and production point of view it is important in a program to keep certain themes consistent throughout a program or season. Doing this helps establish creditability.

Using the spearhead from the last show as an example of this. In the Roanoke episode Wolter stressed to Dawson about how something would stand up in a court of law and how that led him to say that the Dare stone is in fact a authentic artifact and this led to a additional path the survivors of the colony took. Okay fair enough. Now fast forward to the last episode, a picture and a tattoo are the only presented evidence of the so called spearhead, four years removed from its finding and no documentation of its providence. How would this circumstantial evidence be handled in a court of law, most likely it would be dismissed so why is it accepted by someone who says in a previous episode (and on his blog, interviews and other correspondence but that is out of scope here) that the "court of Law' standard is the one that he operates on.

This most defiantly a continuity issue within the program itself and it goes to demonstrate that continuity of themes is not that important to the program or its producers. It shows that the show in fact is willing to play fast and loose with the facts and is only concerned about its entertainment value that could lead to higher ratings.

I could ask further questions about what it says about Wolter's creditability and how it does affect a greater perception of his character and DOES force one to call into question his greater work. That however is a different argument in this case. I will say that the shows FICTIONAL approach to its topics and its willingness to aim for SENSATIONALISM over RESEARCH can and does negatively affect the scientific credibility of those who choose to be the FACE of the show.

All things to thing about..... one should questions the CREDITABILITY of the program and its public representative SIMPLY based on the programs loose approach to is topics and its own internal contradictions based on its own prescribed burden of proof.

Bottom line.. the FACTS in the program and not facts but rather FICTIONS based on things that exist in the real world. The show is willing to be FAST and LOOSE with facts to make money to the point it is WILLING to SACRIFICE its CREDIBILITY for higher ratings.

Rev. Phil Gotsch
2/28/2014 01:53:55 am

"Over Educated Grunt" --

According to the latest information from USGS, the Haleakala (east Maui) volcano probably last erupted in the range of 1480 to 1600 … But I don't have information as to how large or extensive that eruption was …

Yes, obsidian makes a fabulous material for knapping into edged tools and weapons because of the properties of obsidian (volcanic glass) …

It could well be that some gift shops sell tourist trinkets that are modern knock-offs of ancient designs … Certainly modern knappers, e.g., have produced some very respectable copies of, say, "Clovis" and "Folsom" points … So what … ??? Since I haven't personally examined the (purported) Hawaiian point under discussion, I am not in a position to say anything definitive about it ...

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Matt Mc
2/28/2014 02:00:48 am

America Unearthed IS a commercial venture made ONLY to act as draw to SELL commercials.

The program is an ENTERTAINMENT program and is NOT be compared with REAL science based programs like NOVA. Understand this MEANS one ACCEPTS that the expectation of TRUTH from the show does not exist and SHOULD be considered a work of fact based FICTION.

One needs to keep a this.... IN MIND... when discussing the show.

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An Over-Educated Grunt
2/28/2014 02:09:55 am

If the eruption recorded is from stratigraphic records and not from a seismograph, which is the case for all eruptions prior to about 1900, it was a fairly sizeable one, because it had to leave a significant enough depositional record to be worth noting in an island that is literally made of volcanic deposits.

As for "so what...?" this is another example of you choosing to respond to three sentences out of what I said. In this case, "so what" is that, given a volcanic eruption that would have happened after any export from Aztec Mexico, that had to be of sufficient noteworthiness that we know about it, the preservation of a perfect spearhead is extremely unlikely. The preservation of a perfect spearhead on the soil surface, free from any visible signs of physical or chemical weathering after, and this is based on your number of 1600, five hundred years of combined burial and surface exposure, is not merely unlikely, it is, for all intents and purposes, impossible.

Now, again, since you cry foul every time someone says anything even remotely not nice about you and Scott Wolter, I'm still waiting for you to comment on my professional expertise and my ownership of an armchair.

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Rev. Phil Gotsch
2/28/2014 02:50:54 am

"Over Educated Grunt" --

(Unlike you, apparently) I have not been to the Haleakala volcano and do not know with certainly exactly how extensive the most recent eruption was or the precise date of it … Nor do I know the exact location of the (reported) discovery of the (purported) Hawaiian obsidian point in respect to the most recent Haleakala lava flow …

Nor (unlike you, apparently) have I personally examined the (purported) Hawaiian artifact, but I only saw brief glimpses of a video tape of photos (and a tattoo !!!) of it …

So (unlike you) I am not in a position to pontificate about those questions …

Matt Mc
2/28/2014 02:55:59 am

It does seem however you do HAVE an armchair (UNLIKE Grunt)

An Over-Educated Grunt
2/28/2014 03:07:42 am

Ah, and now who's playing snark and personal attack?

Here's the thing, Phil. As I've said before, I've got a Master's in geotechnical engineering. That includes coursework in seismic behavior, engineering geology, geoarchaeology, and instrumentation design. As such, I know that if there's a USGS record for an eruption in the 1500s, it was not recorded by seismograph. If it was not recorded by seismograph, it was recorded by looking at the stratigraphic column for that location, which means that somewhere in that column, there is a layer of volcanic deposition at about 1500-1600 that is noteworthy enough that it was not rolled into the surrounding layers of volcanic deposition, but was recorded as a single event.

You say you've done graduate work in paleontology. That's fine, you should know how to recover an artifact from a site. How many artifacts ever come up whole, unharmed, and unchanged after even short periods in the ground? I'll give you a hint: you don't need any arms to count them on your fingers. Now, let's take a brittle material like obsidian, in thicknesses of a quarter of an inch or so, and you expect me to believe that after five hundred years - again, your numbers, I was prepared to give you only 200 - of being inside a volcano, during which period it erupted at least once, not counting slow eruptions like Kilauea has been experiencing for the last 30 years, creating a measurable depositional layer on top of it, that it is completely intact?

Yes, it could happen that way. It could also have been left there by aliens, or the young-earth creationists could be right, and it was put there by the Flying Spaghetti Monster to test us. These hypotheses all have equal supporting evidence.

Americanegro
8/26/2016 11:17:39 pm

Sorry, Reverend Phil but you are as big a fag as Scott Wolter. You suck major ass.

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Rev. Phil Gotsch
2/28/2014 03:02:38 am

"Matt Mc" --

LOL … No … I have usually found an "armchair" a bit too soft for me … I prefer a nicely straight-back ordinary oak chair (although sometimes cushioned with a small pillow) …

But … Yes … I have done SOME Earth science work, both in the field and in the lab, but I've never been to Hawaii ...

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Matt Mc
2/28/2014 03:15:30 am

I too have done SOME earth work science. Once as a child I tried to prove I could dig a hole to China, needless to say my theory proved incorrect but I did propose a theory, test it, and then record the results for future use (why I never tried to dig to China again). As for in the lab sadly I have not, but I do have a nicer camera than Wolter does and I do have Macro lenses that is way more sensitive then the one Wolter uses and I have looked close up at rocks with it so in AU world I have done in the field lab analysis (in all fairness I had no idea what I was looking at) so I guess I have done Lab work in the field.


It is nice having SOME experience in the field and lab, perhaps one day I will have a TV show also, no wait nevermind about that I hate being on camera, I think I will stay behind the camera for the future but you never know the world always has room for more people willing to tell a good yarn who have SOME experience.

And nice chair, I myself have a simple chair at home that also lacks arms but has great back support and since I work at many different places (the life of a freelancer) I am at the mercy of where ever I am working at for good chairs and it does happen (although less than I would like)

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Rev. Phil Gotsch
2/28/2014 03:30:13 am

"Matt Mc" --

My (thus far, nearly lifelong) calling has provided me some delicious advantages of which I have TAKEN advantage … Along with the very demanding duties of pastoral care, community work, teaching, etc, ordained clergy are expected -- and PAID !!! -- to study, to read, to think, and to investigate everything about the Universe …

In my case, my (thus far) lifelong passion for the natural sciences has allowed me to keep on keeping on … and I'm not done yet ...

Matt Mc
2/28/2014 04:37:42 am

And you should never stop.

My lifelong passion has also provided me interesting opportunities and pays quite well. Well enough that I only have to work a week a month and can spend the rest of my time working with things I have a great interest in also. Like you I am very community minded and while not a religious person I feel that working with and helping the community is very important.

I am lucky I have traveled all over the world because of my career choice and have met many great people and experienced many great cultures. It is great finding that things you are interested in and can explore.

My passion with TV and film has given me great insights and I have learned great things it also taught me to search, learn, and question everything. While my secondary interests are not natural sciences like yourself, unless it comes to my vegetable garden, it does touch upon that. My interest primarily lies in how media can be used to influence and manipulate people and the hopes that by informing and providing examples of that more people can open their eyes to how much the media controls their wants, desires, and thoughts and move them to do things that they want and desire for themselves.

Rev. Phil Gotsch
2/28/2014 03:17:38 am

"Over Educated Grunt"

Again … I have no direct personal knowledge about (1) the Haleakala volcano eruption history, or (2) the purported location of discovery of the purported Hawaiian obsidian artifact, or (3) any direct personal knowledge of the purported artifact (I haven't seen it) …

But, yes … NOT all worked stone implements survive long burial -- or actual use -- fully intact … but SOME DO …

Again … I don't have enough actual INFORMATION about the claims made for ME to give a definitive evaluation … YOU apparently OTOH feel perfectly comfortable doing so … I do NOT … For some reason that seems to bother you … I see no need for you take these questions personally … *whatever*

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Matt Mc
2/28/2014 03:26:14 am

"I don't have enough actual INFORMATION about the claims made for ME to give a definitive evaluation "

Same thing could be said about AU and Wolter, yet that DID not stop them from make CLAIMS that it was real enough to CREATE and CONSPIRACY and COVER UP.

Why would they do this.... hmmm.. oh yeah... Because it is a TV SHOW that is for entertainment purposes only and its only goal is to SELL advertising and FACTS are less important to on camera drama.

sure it is SPECULATION... but it should be NOTED... that there should be NO EXPECTATION of truth from AU and the character Wolter plays on the show.

Reply
Rev. Phil Gotsch
2/28/2014 03:35:10 am

"Matt Mc" --

Re: the episode under discussion …

Neither Scott Wolter nor the "America Unearthed" producers claim to have found or closely examined the controversial obsidian artifact … nor to have performed original researches into the genetics of the sweet potato … nor the invention of the "sewn-plank boat … nor the physical paleo-anthropology of the remains of "Kennewick Man" …

Lighten up ..

Matt Mc
2/28/2014 04:02:00 am

I feel quite content actually.

I simply wanted to REMIND you that the show but its nature is a work of entertainment and a reality based fictional show like its peers in the programing world geared only to sell advertising. Since FACTS are not as important as creating good drama to increase and sustain ratings which in turn brings in advertising revenue one SHOULD not expect facts of TRUTHS from the show.

It is as you so often remind people simple a show made for entertainment and not NOVA by any standards. So there should be no expectation of truth or even truthfulness.

An Over-Educated Grunt
2/28/2014 03:30:15 am

What a coincidence, that means that no one has direct personal knowledge about the volcano's eruption history, unless you care to find yourself a six-hundred-year-old Hawaiian. As for the rest, we do have what we're told, that it was found inside the caldera, on the surface, a location that is vanishingly unlikely for a variety of reasons, and we have multiple people who have said they've seen the same type of thing in Mexican tourist traps.

Now, you wonder why I take this personally. I take it personally because, unlike you, I am a professional in a related field, and I take it personally when anyone drags said professional field down by unprofessional behavior. I also take it personally because you routinely question my competence, while comfortably sitting back and providing nothing to the contrary, and you seem to think that this somehow exempts you from being an "armchair skeptic-critic." Finally, I take it personally because you keep using the English language in ways that make e.e. cummings, never mind Shakespeare, weep. In your last post, you use ten ellipses and five randomly capitalized words. I'm tempted to interpret everything you write as a piece of performance art deliberately intended to offend literate English-speakers.

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Matt Mc
2/28/2014 03:36:37 am

Grunt.

The use of random words is actually quite common. I have several friends and former co-workers who either are involved in or are Protestant (using the generalized term since they span a few denominations) ministers and they all commonly use that technique when writing about things and opinions. Not sure how it originated but it is fairly common with preachers outside of my Catholic friends and Family.

Rev. Phil Gotsch
2/28/2014 03:39:21 am

"Over Educated Grunt" --

You certainly are *free* to give your opinion on ANYTHING, as seems good and right to you, as based upon your own knowledge and experience … Go for it …

I also have had many life experiences and decades of both learning and teaching -- broadly, and sometimes deeply -- that lead ME to draw conclusions -- or not -- regarding any particular situation or claim …

Americanegro
8/26/2016 11:23:03 pm

We call Reverend Phil's writing style "Being an enormous fag and probably a child abuser."

An Over-Educated Grunt
2/28/2014 03:37:50 am

I am comfortable giving my evaluation because I realize I will never have all of the information, and therefore collect enough to form an opinion, rather than relying on wishful thinking and "it COULD be." This is called "professional judgment." My professional judgment, based on my experience and training, is that the two supposed finders are unreliable witnesses, it looks like a souvenir trinket, and the evidence in favor of its legitimacy is so sparse and flies so strongly in the face of known geology, archaeology, and simple common sense, that said evidence is negligible at best.

I take it personally because, in case you hadn't picked up on this, I too am a professional in a licensing field. Every time someone uses their professional license to support a conclusion that it doesn't warrant, like, say, AU, it weakens the profession as a whole, and I get very tired of when someone who freely admits they lack the background and training, like, say, you, insists that his opinion is just as valid as mine. Bluntly, it isn't, when the rubber meets the road.

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Gunn
2/28/2014 04:50:38 am

I think I see what's happening. Rev. Phil is saying that a definitive answer isn't available or known about the spear-point. He's suggesting that there is a small opening left for innocent speculation.

Ardent skeptics don't like this position, and sometimes people who may seem "over-educated" are too stiff about far-fetched ideas. The problem for over-aggressive skeptics is that sometimes far-fetched ideas come true.

We don't know enough about the spear-point to make any final conclusions...including a conclusion that it is "100%" certain to be a fake. All sorts of scenarios are "possible," including the possibility that it is authentic, but experienced some kind of freak accident involving travel and Native Hawaiians, ending up where it did perhaps a mere two hundred years ago. How many abstract yet possible conjectures can we come up with? This is painful for over-eager skeptics.

Phil is stubbornly saying that positive conclusions cannot be drawn at this point...which is irritating to someone who already thinks he knows the answers. But, in this case, the overly-opinionated may also be overly-educated--resulting in a form of self-induced, partial blindness. Just an observation.

Simply put, being represented here is the typical clash between the feel for a need for exactitude in history, and a feel for open speculation until exactitude is reached. At this point, nobody knows the answers about the spear-point...they can only be guessed at. We don't know for sure, so we may still guess: common clash between skeptics and speculators.

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An Over-Educated Grunt
2/28/2014 05:18:57 am

Gunn, do you plan your winter clothing based on the possibility that you'll open your front door and there's Cancun outside? That's what you're arguing in favor of, since you can't say definitively you won't open your door and find a Mexican beach instead of the blizzard you can see out your windows, because you can't definitively see behind the door.

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Rev. Phil Gotsch
2/28/2014 05:43:28 am

For SURE … A person who has experienced, lived in, lived through, numerous winters in Minnesota is best qualified to make statements about winter in Minnesota …

It's a hallmark of "empiricism," i.e., the understanding that knowledge derived from experience is probably the BEST kind …

That is why trained and experienced seekers like to see for themselves, GO "there," repeat the measurements independently, check out the reports, and so on ...

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Matt Mc
2/28/2014 05:54:47 am

Unless of course the winter in question in MN is being presented on TV. It could easily happen that when the door is opened one in fact would see a beach in Cancun while the interior of the house is in MN. But in reality they are both on a soundstage in Chicago.

So it would be fair to say that what appears to be research on TV could in fact be as staged and fake as the Cancun and MN sets are. It could be even more complicated when we discover that the house in MN was merely a photograph that was animated and in fact no one has seen the house at all, well except for the guy who claims it exists that also just happens to be an actor.

I think it would be safer to say that since no one has seen the house or the beach in cancun except on TV that it is in fact staged and a falsehood.

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Gunn
2/28/2014 06:45:12 am

Matt Mc, you're missing the possibility that someone like me, an aging prankster at heart, could sneak up to Rev. Phil's front door and hang a Cancun tapestry up for him to see when he opens the door. Huh? Well, it is possible, though unlikely.

Also, there is the possibility of Orange Sunshine flashbacks occurring at the front door, which I heard can occur many years later. Maybe Phil had a sordid flower-child past, including occasional experimentation with LSD...this could certainly eject him right smack dab into a Cancun hallucination--ALMOST real.

Also, Phil could be dreaming about Cancun and sleep-walk himself right into a front door Cancun beach setting, sand on the toes and all...until actually opening the door and getting blasted by very real 45 degree below temps (wind chill ONLY)...and then finding himself up to his butt-cheeks in snow. Oh no! So much for speculating....

So then, are we specifically talking about Cancun literally being at the front door, or can there be misunderstandings of perspective? Let's be clear, okay, or at least clear enough to completely thwart any possibility for wiggle room.

Skeptics like the straight-jacket as a sort of security blanky, while speculators like that tiny bit of wriggle room, right up to the end. Anyone come to mind? Anyone with an honorable name?

An Over-Educated Grunt
2/28/2014 06:12:00 am

And AGAIN... PATIENTLY... NOT FOR THE FIRST TIME...

If there were sufficient evidence to justify a second look, I'd be all in favor of it... BUT... all of the "evidence"... points to a FRAUD.

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Rev. Phil Gotsch
2/28/2014 06:28:44 am

"Over Educated Grunt" --

You surely are allowed to form and express your own opinion on this question on whatever basis seems sufficient for you …

Whether OTHERS take your opinion as "authoritative" and definitive" or not is a DIFFERENT matter ...

An Over-Educated Grunt
2/28/2014 06:41:57 am

And you won't be persuaded by anything short of a time machine, so what's the point? I do appreciate your willingness to sit down, take the time out of your busy day, and confirm my opinion of you, though.

Gunn
2/28/2014 06:57:36 am

Grump, it is obvious that you suffer from too much self-appreciation of being over-educated, which is causing you to become too lofty and intolerant of your fellow man. In other words, you come across as being too wise in yer own eyes, and about as stiff as a running board. No need to be mean and nasty to Phil, just because Only Me is. What's the obligation, anyway?

An Over-Educated Grunt
2/28/2014 07:03:16 am

Tell you what, Gunn. You don't try to figure out who leads me to my opinions, and I won't tell you my opinion of your stonehole hypothesis.

An Over-Educated Grunt
2/28/2014 07:20:10 am

Actually, scratch that. The stonehole business actually serves as a good example of my position on things.

There is a key difference between the presence of bored holes in stone and this spearhead. First, there's no doubt that the holes actually exist, however they were formed. Second, there is no evidence one way or the other that, as a mass, they were all created for one purpose or another. Could they have been boundary markers? I doubt it, but it is possible, and I have no evidence to say it could not happen. Could they have been blasting holes? Again, I consider it possible, and I have no evidence to rule it out. Really, the worst thing I can say about the stoneholes is that almost certainly they don't belong to a vast, sprawling interior colony of Swedes, Templar or other, because the infrastructure for them to be based on that doesn't exist. I'm not talking towns, I'm talking the access routes, either up the Mississippi watershed, overland from either coast, or from Hudson Bay. There's no evidence to support the idea that anyone in the 1300s was making that trip. I can tell you that you personally get on my nerves, but that's got nothing to do with your ideas, which frankly I don't have the evidence or expertise to evaluate.

That last sentence has everything to do with this spearhead argument. There is a great deal of circumstantial evidence to say it's a fraud, and not one speck of evidence, circumstantial or otherwise, to say that it's genuine - unlike cases where I can, and will, legitimately say I don't know.

Rev. Phil Gotsch
2/28/2014 08:32:49 am

"Over Educated Grump" --

The EARTH itself is the "time machine" to which we DO have access … !!!

We ... E-X-A-M-I-N-E ... the E-V-I-D-E-N-C-E ... that we find IN the Earth -- the rocks and minerals, artifacts, remains, and so on to try to understand what happened and when it happened …

So, e.g., the latest USGS finding on the latest eruption of the Haleakala volcano was made on basis of a C-14 test … It's like that …

Anyone who CLAIMS that the (purported) Hawaiian obsidian point is in reality a (planted; lost; discarded) tourist trinket from a gift shop in Mexico CAN (OUGHT to) lay it alongside a KNOWN tourist trinket from a gift shop in Mexico and make the COMPARISON …

That is how science is done … Evidence is EXAMINED (not simply flat out dismissed) and claims are INVESTIGATED (not simply quickly disregard) ...

Sir Gunn link
3/1/2014 03:34:11 am

Grunt, thanks for the opportunity.

You say: "...the infrastructure for them to be based on that doesn't exist. I'm not talking towns, I'm talking the access routes, either up the Mississippi watershed, overland from either coast, or from Hudson Bay. There's no evidence to support the idea that anyone in the 1300s was making that trip."

You miss two important factors, Grunt: one, evidence does exist that people were making the trips, plural. The stoneholes, themselves, are primary and numerous evidence...when perceived correctly. I don't think your mind is open enough to see this likelihood. Two, the "infrastructure" routes you desire are right there for you to discover on your own. I made it easy for you. Click on my name above, and you can see no less than three separate ocean-ways into the interior, all ending up AT THE SAME PLACE.

Now, it is up to you to decide what you will do with the FACT that these water-ways (yes, Hudson and St. Lawrence, and Gulf) all culminate in one spot far inland at a place I have dubbed "New Gotaland," which is the Whetstone River area of far SE, SD, right across the border from MN.

The multitude of stoneholes, which you don't want to be accounted for, suggest this spot was EXTREMELY FAVORABLE for taking up land for future use. And this manner of taking up land can be seen in Scandinavian medieval Europe. It isn't merely coincidence that these same stoneholes are found in both NW Europe and in far-inland medieval America.

And keep in mind that all this "theory" is standing on its own, without the KRS. Add in the KRS, and we have a slam-dunk, Grump!

(Right now I have an image of Sam Elliott telling me, "I like yer style, Gunn, Dude.")

Gunn
3/1/2014 09:26:17 am

Obvious bias:

Grunt says: "Could they have been boundary markers? I doubt it, but it is possible, and I have no evidence to say it could not happen. Could they have been blasting holes? Again, I consider it possible, and I have no evidence to rule it out."

Grunt, you didn't doubt they were for blasting holes, yet you did doubt that they were for boundary markers. See the bias? Of course, my stated position is that--at least in this "New Gotaland," the stoneholes WERE for marking boundaries.

Yet, unless I'm mistaken, you have nothing to base your over-educated opinion on regarding these mysterious stoneholes. It's easy to take the publicized, negative--yet wrong--view. You have NOTHING! You are trapped by your own hubris. Ha! Ha! May I have some fun here?

Rev. Phil Gotsch
3/1/2014 10:05:35 am

I have always found that bit about "blasting holes" … ummm … puzzling …

"Hey, Ole … !!! Let's go out and drill a bunch of 'blasting holes' in a whole bunch of boulders … Okay … ???"

"Okay … Sure, why not … But are we gonna blast 'em, then … Do you want me to bring along some explosives, then … ???"

"Nah … Why waste the dynamite … ??? We'll just drill the holes … Somethin' to do in our spare time, don'tcha know … ??? We got nothin' better to do, do we … ???"

Gunn
3/2/2014 03:59:00 am

Thanks, Rev. Phil. I needed that! The bottom line is that all these mysterious stoneholes have to be accounted for. That's where the inquiry must begin. Once the ludicrous notion of carving them for blasting and then forgetting to blast them is done away with, the former primary discouragement is eliminated...which is a good thing when seeking Truth. If not for blasting, then what for? Exactly....

Keeping in mind that many other "oddities" come from an intimate relationship to these stoneholes, in most cases, oddities such as medieval Scandinavian weapons, Scandinavian-style medieval appearing stone carvings...and of course the ultimate, weighty package of DYNAMITE for blasting the skeptics, the Stone itself!

And now I know where to concentrate the search...well, just to say that the area is minimized and concentrated down to within just over a square mile and a half--this based on clues and reasons I'm not privy to go into at the present time.

There is this thing about pearls to consider, Rev. Phil, as you can well imagine, being open-minded enough to imagine even the most far-flung, most fanciful possibilities....

Templar/Cistercian treasure??? "He who laughs last, laughs hardest." (Me and "Sam" have the clues, Rev. Dude.)

Rev. Phil Gotsch
3/2/2014 05:58:48 am

Gunn --

My first parish assignment was in the FAR north reaches of Minnesota -- in the FAR north … Some of my congregants then were elderly original pioneers who logged old-growth IMMENSE white pines from their land, cleared HUGE boulders from land to be cultivated …

SOMETIMES a boulder was dragged away by a team of draft animals … SOMETIMES it was too large and was BLASTED …

NO … They assuredly did NOT waste their time drilling "blast holes" into boulders and then just abandoning the plan … They were very practical hard working immigrants … who did what they had to do … when it needed to be done ...

Gunn Sinclair
3/2/2014 11:49:38 am

And yet I can assure you that right now the MAIN reason skeptics are giving for the stoneholes, is immigrant Scandinavians forgetting to blast them. I mean, the official view. I think even Jason alluded to this conclusion in a discussion of stoneholes even before I first came here about a year ago.

Since that time, I have tried different approaches to discuss the subject in an attempt to reach further clarity. People mistakenly think there's not much to consider about these "stupid stoneholes," yet they are the primary glue holding all "evidences" up here together within the web-work of this "apparent" illusion.

But, again, if they cannot be scientifically explained away, they must be accounted for. How can they be ignored? Well, they have been, but primarily because a few people have been using the LAME excuse that the hundreds of stoneholes were for blasting, based on a LAME study that was done many years ago. Logic was temporarily displaced...actually, it is still displaced when folks believe this past lie.

I hope, Rev. Phil, that we have helped to clear this matter up, for once all of the illogical excuses are exhausted, we have only aged, triangulated, medieval Scandinavian stoneholes at hand...and we also have temporary VICTORY here in our exhaustive perseverance in considering the value of indulging in fringe speculation--not at all a waste of time. (Only for the over-educated, who already know the answers.)

Rev.Phil Gotsch
3/2/2014 02:25:34 pm

Ummm … ??? Oh, please … They "'forgot' to blast them" … ???

So … they "forgot" to blast them because they went blind overnight and could no longer see the boulder that was originally at some point a large enough *bother* that they DID drill a "blast hole" into it … ???

uh huh

RLewis
3/3/2014 05:55:21 am

Gunn,
I see you're back with the same old story. Jason provided this link over a year ago which explains that there were no navigable waterways and that the stone holes were, in fact, blasting holes. Everyone can read for themselves.

http://collections.mnhs.org/MNHistoryMagazine/articles/56/v56i03p120-128.pdf

Rev. Phil Gotsch
3/3/2014 07:36:42 am

"RLewis" --

The (supposed) "upshot" is that they drilled a lot of "blasting holes" and for whatever reason(s) just didn't bother to blast 'em … ???

Sir Gunn Sinclair link
3/3/2014 11:55:53 am

RLewis, you have given me opportunity to complete the circle nicely here. Thank you. Indeed, Jason did discuss this issue before I showed up here, as I have seen. However, and unfortunately, Jason was incorrect in both of his conclusions, which I have just gone into detail about.

What you've done here, RLewis, is to reiterate for me that these two earlier viewpoints of Jason's were wrong. If you've followed at all that I've just written in this blog-line, you would understand that Jason was misled by the information he absorbed. He's not alone, though. Other people up here in MN also mistakenly go back to this earlier discussion, which reached a very wrong conclusion. Tom Trow? That names pops into my mind. Wasn't he also in an AU episode? Maybe I'm confused about this. Anyway, to conclude that all these holes were for blasting is now recognized by most "in-the-know" as foolishness...not unlike the earlier foolishness associating the stoneholes with mooring ships! Okay, it's give us a break time, here. Anyway, RLewis, thanks for pointing out that Jason was wrong a year ago, though he may not want to thank you. I hope he has changed his mind since then.

As as aside, going back far enough, one can see that I had actually named a stonehole after our kind host, since I thought at the time that he was absolutely REFUSING to recognize it for what it is--not a immigrant blasting hole!

Concerning the river-routes, I have been EXHAUSTIVE in showing how the river-loving Norse explorers made it, step-by-step, to far inland New Gotaland. If you, RLewis, or anyone else wants to pick at this notion of no water-ways, please do me the favor. But to save yourself the time, simply look, again I say, to the simple map I have provided. (Click on my name.)

How can there be ANY doubt about access to these far inland points? I have crowed on endlessly about how the Chippewa River flows strong within a very few miles of Runestone Park! This river flows down into the MN river, accessible via the MS and St. Croix Rivers, up to Lake Superior. This river route is no illusion, just as these un-blasted stoneholes are not illusions. At my website, look at the Chippewa River route I photographed to prove accessibility to Runestone Hill via a water-way. I've done pretty much everything I can to clear these matters up, and I would be so very happy if I have made an impact on Jason sufficient to change his mind about these two issues.

In my mind, these are two extremely important issues, to fully understand what happened up here in medieval times, and since there are TWO misconceptions linked together here, I think there is an unmistakable compounding effect, which makes the matter even worse.

I have been persistent about the KRS, and stoneholes, and these river routes (plural) because influential people are either ignoring or else misinterpreting the data and facts. But I like it, RLewis, when we can explore these important issues to their fullest, to hopefully reach maximum truthful conclusions, according to the FACTUAL data, which I thought most skeptics here delight in.

I'm not challenging Jason, I'm simply asking him to consider changing his mind about: one, stoneholes; two, available river routes. His viewpoints are influential, and in the end, matter.

"Life is like a circle--a stonehole circle." - Black Elk (Just kidding.)

RLewis
3/4/2014 01:02:01 am

Everyone can read the article for themselves. IMO all of your objections are addressed - you have presented no new research or evidence, just more conjecture.

Rev. Phil Gotsch
3/4/2014 04:53:18 am

RLewis --

No … I have offered NO "conjecture" about the holes in the boulders

… I simply note that the conjecture YOU embrace, i.e., that hard-working immigrant farmers drilled lots of "blast holes" in lots of boulders, and then just didn't bother to blast them or FORGOT to blast them ... DOESN'T MAKE SENSE ...

Matt Mc
3/4/2014 05:04:38 am

To quote you Rev

"Well, as in everything in life … it depends ..."

Its all conjecture, on all sides, the blast holes just makes a little more sense to me. But it is all conjecture until something is proven it is all conjecture.




Gunn
3/4/2014 07:06:37 am

The bottom line is that some people just don't want to recognize any advancements being made. RLewis, you just admitted that you are blind, and Matt Mc, you basically said logical conclusions aren't important...that everything is conjecture, so hum-de-da.

We have come to the end of the trail on this one, an end to a line. The circle for me and others will continue, and we will ride this circle, gaining further knowledge. You skeptics can go ahead and take the end of a line, finishing-up your shortsightedness there. There is the growing body of evidence still gathering...to overwhelm you, finally.

Anybody visiting here can see that I have presented everything in fine detail, but it was of no avail to at least those few who just voiced their positively negative opposition to my findings. They either oppose my findings for no good reason, or they are purposely, selectively, refusing to see them. But this served as a good exercise in revealing just how close-minded some "natural skeptics" can be.

The stronger my case, the more silent became the adversaries...except for those few foolish enough to carry the obvious bias forward. Perhaps they will learn yet. But would they ever admit to being incorrect? A few here would never admit that anything exists to threaten "1492"--well, you know what I mean. It's symbolism, a sort of line drawn in the history-sand, a line that strives to be unspoken and made to be unimportant, but can still be seen...especially up here in MN and SD.

Valid medieval stoneholes and viable inland water-ways cannot be recognized here on this blog, by most. This represents a collective close-mindedness. I wonder if this kind of collective close-mindedness exists in some of our Nation's museums...and places of academic excellence? Is there a vague, unspoken, loose-knit conspiracy, bleeding from one source to another, to another, to another? Does this mean the history we were taught as children could be wrong? Oh dear, look what purposeful, collective close-mindedness can do! Poor History!

Matt Mc
3/4/2014 07:17:16 am

No Gunn, I am saying that despite the logic you see in your conclusion I see no logic what-so-ever.

Just to be clear.

Gunn
3/4/2014 07:28:33 am

If you can't see an easy to see water-way, how can anyone expect you to see logic when its staring you right in the face? Answer the question about the water-way, or clam-up. Admit there's a water-way...just one. I'm not even asking you to see two, or three...only one.

Matt Mc
3/4/2014 07:44:32 am

Gunn, the only thing I will say is that I do believe the chance of your stoneholes being what you claim them to be is far greater than the spearhead from this episode has of being what it is claimed to be in the episode.



Dan
2/28/2014 03:08:51 pm

I think we call all agree that AU certainly stages the phone calls and text messages that Wolter "receives" at particularly opportune times in virtually every single episode.

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jerry
3/3/2014 01:46:50 pm

The show does a lot to ham up the production for the sake of looking good. That might detract from the content to some, but this is early 21st century american cable production style. If they gave a dry talk without setup phone calls, texts, and gratuitous zip line rides, no one would watch it.

As for the two guys who found the spearhead. I know them both personally and they are honest people, not looking to make names for themselves or anything. Bryan may be listed as an 'actor' - one of his jobs is running a fire spinning troupe here - but that should not the role he was doing for the show. Trevor works part time as a back country fire fighter for california - where he often encounters artifacts.

The details of the find and subsequent attempts to talk with park service and their confiscation were not IMHO all that well described in the show. The spearhead was found in the middle of a cliff face that was not easily accessible. It may have been washed from some other hiding place but was probably not thown/left where it was found. The area is known as a sacred area to native hawaiians. The spearhead was examined by some of their elders and they found it quite interesting - and 'energetic' (this is a shamanistic culture - both historically and with many new maui residents).

The guys did contact the park service when they found it, but no one from PS was interested in following up ... until they heard the cable show was coming. Then the week before the crew was due to show up, they requested a meeting. Two people showed up (Bryan was expecting only one). The second was identified originally as a 'research assistant'. It was not until after they grabbed the artifact that she identified herself as federal law enforcement. The guys had stated earlier that they fully intended to give the spearhead to the park service, and had plans to do it during/after the show was filmed. Why the park service took it when they did, and has subsequently refused to discuss it or make it available for any review, is unknown. If they were looking to add extra controversy to the find, they did a great job. If they wanted to bury it (which some emails indicate) they screwed up.
It would be a lot easier to simply let some experts examine it, openly, and declare opinions of its authenticity, age, etc. At present it appears the spearhead has gone to that huge warehouse at the end of Raiders of The Lost Ark.

Reply
Rev. Phil Gotsch
3/3/2014 03:57:16 pm

KNOWING someone personally over time … is not a small thing … It DOES get to credibility, doesn't it … ???

Reply
Matt Mc
3/4/2014 03:04:03 am

Only for the person that knows said person, For everyone else it just appears as someone defending their friend (which is what friends do) but does not add to credibility at all rather it shows bias.

Rev. Phil Gotsch
3/4/2014 04:37:55 am

Matt Mc --

Well, as in everything in life … it depends ...

Matt Mc
3/4/2014 04:55:46 am

Example from my life, I have worked with Bill o'Reilly quite a bit and think he find him quite likable and consider him a good person who has a great work ethic, I have defended him here several times. My feelings toward him however does not mean that he as a public figure is not a jerk who grossly distorts things. I do not expect people who dislike him to change their feelings about him because I know him.

And why should they. I can honestly say that you are friends with Wolter, I happen to think aside from your personal agenda here that you are a good person, I know you are friends with Wolter, that however does not change my feelings about Wolter at all. I still think he is a charlatan and nothing you can say will change that. I mean I really don't even know if you are friends since you are just another name on the internet. So why should I trust you. I also accept that if you are in fact Wolter's friend that your feelings toward him are affecting your judgement and perception of the Public figure he projects.


Just as you say one should keep an open mind, one should keep an open mind that says claimed friendship or friendship does still not mean that someone is being truthful in public.

Rev. Phil Gotsch
3/4/2014 05:19:31 am

Matt Mc --

Nope … I don't HAVE a "personal agenda" here ...

Matt Mc
3/4/2014 05:25:41 am

It all depends on how you look at thing Rev, one must keep an open mind.

My open mind says that your actions still dictate the possibility of you having an agenda here is large, you could claim otherwise, but that does not mean I believe you. As I have learned in life most people who have agendas when confronted with them to to deny the fact that said agenda exists. Is this conjecture sure, but one that I think has enough evidence to show that it is a possibility and this your responses should be read with the possibility that there is and agenda.

One just has to keep an open mind to all possiblities, Rev.

Rev. Phil Gotsch
3/4/2014 05:56:44 am

Matt Mc --

So … What do you believe or perceive my "agenda" to be … ???

Matt Mc
3/4/2014 06:05:22 am

Ah well I will leave that up to you to figure out. Others have said it in the past and will say it in the future. Sometime through searching one might be able to see not how one means to be but how others perceive them.

If you truly do not have an agenda maybe at least by reading your own past comments and others response you might be able to see how other might observe an agenda.

Rev. Phil Gotsch
3/4/2014 07:07:34 am

Matt Mc --

Okay … (non)message received … LOL ...

Sir Gunn
3/4/2014 07:24:33 am

Matt Mc, I have just shown--proven, above, that you don't have an open mind, so how can you accuse Rev. Phil of same? You make it sound like open-mindedness is so important to you, yet you have just been shown to be close-minded. This is as interestingly hypocritical and it is alarming.

Address this please: is there a viable water-way from the ocean to within a few miles of Runestone Park? If you cannot see this, there is no hope for you here. Sorry to have to say so; it's just plain to see. We should be embracing truth, not out-of-hand rejecting it. I need to say that you are a hindrance here, and an unnecessary nuisance to Rev. Phil, too. For what? No good reason.

He can address all kinds of subjects that come up here, and he does. There's nothing wrong with him being loyal, and liking Wolter--cake frosting on his face and all!

Matt Mc
3/4/2014 07:25:04 am

Good way to prove my point.

You know Rev. Rhetoric and diversion are never good for anything than distraction.

Since in the past many many people (including myself) have state what we believe you agenda to be and you have chosen to ignore it or for some strange reason unable to process it, I think it goes to demonstrate that you do come here not for purposes of discussion of the topics.

Too bad, I was hoping for better.

At least you offer more than Mr. St.Clair.

Gunn
3/4/2014 07:36:24 am

Matt McNutt, are you invoking the good name of Sir Steve?

(Steve, Rev. Phil and I have created some wriggle room for you; we could use a strong, reasonable voice here.)

Matt Mc
3/4/2014 07:40:32 am

Gunn - my mind is very open, I might not agree with your theories but it is indeed open.

Just to be clear agreeing with you does not constitute to having a open mind. I think an open mind is having the ability to come to ones on conclusions and be willing to adjust and change those conclusions based on further information or learning, something I do on a daily basis.

I have every right to believe and have my own opinions as you do yours, we do not have to agree. That does not make my opinions more right than yours or yours more right than mind. failing to understand that others might have different conclusions is in fact very closed minded which is something you have demonstrated every time someone disagrees with you.

In fact I said a while ago that I would not interact with you again because I saw it as useless. I than saw that you said you wish to change and would not behave the same way. I being open minded decided that maybe you have changed, sadly you being closed minded have shown me you have not.

So we are back to square one. I will respect want you say, shake my head at times and silent disagree for now. Unlike Rev. who I do enjoy the civil discourse with and believe is someone who I can communicate with in a civil manner and expect the same in return, you have shown that you cannot reciprocate.

So have a good day Gunn

Gunn link
3/4/2014 02:42:39 pm

Matt Mc, right now your inescapable problem is that you don't seem willing to just up and admit that there is an inland water-way, from the ocean to within a few miles of Runestone Hill. You acknowledged the stoneholes are more likely than the Hawaii spear-point, but that is saying nothing.

You want to keep talking about open-mindedness, yet you cannot seem to open your mind enough to see an actual, vivid, H2O pathway inland--even though there is even more than one to choose from! No one can take you serious here, or believe you, unless and until you finally admit to looking at a map and seeing the water-way.

I provided a website with a marked map, yet you cannot see what is immediately available for you. Click on my name by the arrow and then look at the page with the marked map I provided. You must not want to do this, because then you would have to admit what you don't want to admit to.

You have revealed yourself to be purposely blind here, not at all open-minded. Look. Look. Look. Don't be blind. See the water-way. Look Matt, see the water-way. Go. Go Matt, go. Go look at the water-way.

"I SEE!" Matt finally exclaimed. "Thanks for being persistent, Gunn! You the Man! I like yer style Dude! I AM REFRESHED! Now, tell me more about them stoneholes, so I can believe in THEM TOO!"

No problem. You can relax now...stop being so uptight about unwanted truth. A truth-pill is a truth-pill is a truth-pill. Take another one, and another...they will serve you well. Lies and close-mindedness will make you squirm.

Finally recognizing this water-way truth, and admitting to seeing it, will set you free to RELAX enough to start seeing stoneholes with a more critical (and unbiased) eye, too. I'm always here to answer valid questions, or you can contact me by email, from above.

Gunn
3/4/2014 02:47:30 pm

Matt McNutt: "I than saw that you said you wish to change and would not behave the same way."

And I don't know what hat you pulled that kicking, squirming rabbit from.

RLewis
3/4/2014 12:57:17 am

So, can they provide the names (or contact information for the local offices) of the Park Services employee and Federal Agent who took the spearhead?

Reply
Only Me
3/4/2014 03:25:23 pm

As an observation, the land where the spearhead was found is not only a national park (making it illegal to remove the spearhead), but the land is also sacred to native Hawaiians. That makes the spearhead's removal doubly troublesome.

The fact that the spearhead was shown to elders, who found it "quite interesting", and nothing more, only further serves to make its origins suspect. I should hope that they would want it returned to where it was found, if it is relevant to their history. I'd hate to think they'd have such a casual attitude toward people keeping any artifacts found on sacred land, without a concern for whether such artifacts are being sold for personal profit. This is their cultural heritage we're talking about.

Reply
Rev. Phil Gotsch
3/4/2014 03:51:59 pm

Yup …

So we shall see when and if and to whom the (purported) artifact is returned ...

Gunn Sinclair link
3/5/2014 05:15:13 am

In fairness to Matt Mc, I should mention that he is only espousing the same viewpoints previously rendered by Jason here about a year ago, apparently. I don't know that Jason has changed his views on these two subjects, either.

I do know that Jason is open-minded enough to click on my name, above, and take a quick look at the immediately-available map image. But, Matt, I'm not so sure you would be willing to do the same...and report back to me here, after stirring up all this commotion.

On the issue of stoneholes, though God Himself knows how hard I've tried here, I think Jason may possibly still think Scandinavians are afflicted with "Deficit of the Cranium," insomuch as these pesky "un-blasted" stoneholes are concerned. Just because one foolish person said as much in writing. (Not you, Jason.) What a fool. Even otherwise respectable Christians up here in MN have been taken in by such "Scandinavian immigrant bashing"--such an idea! What an INSULT!

So then, Matt, my simple and actually quite unemotional frustration at seemingly being unable to convince you about river-ways and stoneholes EXTENDS, apparently, to the oftentimes generous blog host, for whom I hold no particular distain over the matter.

However, it would mean a lot to the cause I'm involved in for Jason to reevaluate the "evidence" which holds so much in the balance (at least in my own mind), and to possibly consider publicly changing his viewpoints on either one or both of these contentious matters.

We know his previous positions, but we (more than one here) WONDER about his current thinking. The map/water-way issue is obvious, but what still about these stoneholes?

Jason: Question: Is it possible that these dozens upon dozens of stoneholes, in many specific sites, which appear to be both hand chiseled and aged, are the result of Scandinavians forgetting to blast them? Let's look at this as a group thing, in general, if you don't mind.

We are at the nitty-gritty here, for together, stoneholes and water-ways tell the story (not forgetting that Old Troublemaker, the KRS, for even extra "credibility"). They are brothers and sisters in history, even as we are all here as brothers and sisters seeking truth in history...one small, itty-bitty puzzle piece at a time...or, even one triangulated, aged stonehole at a time.

Once again, Jason, will you help in this noble cause, for a moment or two overlooking this "seemingly" regional Euro-centrism? My thanks in advance.

http://www.hallmarkemporium.com/discoveries/id33.html

PS: Months later now; can anyone tell me what the iron object is shown on another page of the above website? I will offer a $100 reward for a positive identification of what this object is, if Jason is willing to entertain such a notion.

Reply
Dan
3/5/2014 06:08:18 am

The reason that no one is responding to your claim to have a "map" of a water route to the ocean is that its not only completely absurd but also kind of sad. Your "map" http://www.hallmarkemporium.com/discoveries/id33.html is basically you drawing lines in magic marker on a map of the KRS area. There are not navigable waterways, as your Chippewa River photos show. These are barely streams, certainly not navigable by an ocean-worthy vessel. To suggest that a medieval vessel navigated the 100-or-so miles from Duluth to Alexandria by means of a series of "connect-the-dot" rivers and streams is not only completely improbable but really kind of crazy to suggest.
KRS was a fraud and Ohman basically admitted the same. All of the credible experts agree that its linguistic abnormalities are fatal to any consideration of this as a legitimate runestone, without even getting into the logistic and geographical impossibilites of Scandinavian explorers reaching the US Midwest.
A fake runestone, some stoneholes, and a map marked up with a sharpie don't make a legitimate theory.
This is the last I'm going to comment on this. I feel bad for you, I really do, but you have to stop.

Reply
Rev. Phil Gotsch
3/5/2014 09:25:57 am

Dan --

No … The Kensington Rune Stone is NOT a "fraud" and its discoverer NEVER "admitted" any such thing … Reference, please … ???

Reply
Gunn
3/6/2014 04:02:33 am

Admittedly, Rev. Phil, this is a well-laid trap, for after the water-way feasibilities are acknowledged, it would be on to the stoneholes...which are as very real as these pesky water-ways!

If I can twist one arm into a half-Nelson, maybe I can get someone into a full-Nelson...or is that Nelsen, or Neilsen? Anyway, a good strong Scandinavian hold!

Sir Gunn Sinclair link
3/6/2014 03:18:34 am

Dan, your remarks are complete nonsense. You are one of those who absolutely refuse to see a water-way to within a few miles of Runestone Hill, yes, from the Atlantic Ocean.

Any intelligent person knows the water-ways diminish as one travels inland, necessitating smaller vessels. This is common sense. Big ships don't travel small streams, nor do they sail on them. Follow from present day Duluth over to the St. Croix River and south to the MS River, then back up a short stretch to the MN River and then westward to the Chippewa River, which FLOWS STRONG up past within about 3 or 4 miles of Runestone Hill.

This is an act of desperation, Dan, for you to refuse to see a viable water-way. Stoneholes, I can understand to a certain extent, but how can you so purposely not see what is available for anyone to see on a map? Sorry, but my conclusion has to be that you are either dumb, or as stubborn as a few others here, including Jason, in not being able to acknowledge physical, geological FACTS. How dare you overly-zealous skeptics so brazenly "overlook" the truth?

Dan, your response was pitiable, like that of a mole.

Reply
Gunn
3/6/2014 03:42:51 am

Lake Superior to Bois Brule River, to St. Croix River, to Mississippi River, to Minnesota River, to Chippewa River (MN), to Runestone Hill. Simple and undeniable.

Huh? Well, if anyone is blind to this route, just take the Hudson Bay, Red River Route! Why be public moles!

Gunn
3/6/2014 04:33:03 am

Rev. Phil, "...look what they're dropping down now...a night crawler...a WHITE one!" (See the catfish's response.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqHGh0fUuL0

"Humor is the mistress of sorrow." - Emerson

Reply
Aaron
4/5/2014 04:51:27 am

My problem with this show is that they base everything on WHO discovered America and I really hate to tell you this, But America was always here and didn't magically appear and there were people already here and those that came here STOLE this land from the indigenous population and killed them off in order to claim it as theirs. Why do the Americans still celebrate Columbus day when in fact it is a lie? HISTORY IS A LIE and most all of America Believes it.

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        • Al-Biruni on the Great Flood
        • Voyage of the Zeno Brothers
        • The Kensington Runestone (Hoax)
        • Islamic Discovery of America
        • The Aztec Creation Myth
      • Lost Civilizations >
        • Atlantis >
          • Plato's Atlantis Dialogues >
            • Timaeus
            • Critias
          • Fragments on Atlantis
          • Panchaea: The Other Atlantis
          • Eumalos on Atlantis (Hoax)
          • Gómara on Atlantis
          • Sardinia and Atlantis
          • Santorini and Atlantis
          • The Mound Builders and Atlantis
          • Donnelly's Atlantis
          • Atlantis in Morocco
          • Atlantis and the Sea Peoples
          • W. Scott-Elliot >
            • The Story of Atlantis
            • The Lost Lemuria
          • The Lost Atlantis
          • Atlantis in Africa
          • How I Found Atlantis (Hoax)
          • Termier on Atlantis
          • The Critias and Minoan Crete
          • Rebuttal to Termier
          • Further Responses to Termier
          • Flinders Petrie on Atlantis
        • Lost Cities >
          • Miscellaneous Lost Cities
          • The Seven Cities
          • The Lost City of Paititi
          • Manuscript 512
          • The Idolatrous City of Iximaya (Hoax)
          • The 1885 Moberly Lost City Hoax
          • The Elephants of Paredon (Hoax)
        • OOPARTs
        • Oronteus Finaeus Antarctica Map
        • Caucasians in Panama
        • Jefferson's Excavation
        • Fictitious Discoveries in America
        • Against Diffusionism
        • Tunnels Under Peru
        • The Parahyba Inscription (Hoax)
        • Mound Builders
        • Gunung Padang
        • Tales of Enchanted Islands
        • The 1907 Ancient World Map Hoax
        • The 1909 Grand Canyon Hoax
        • The Interglacial Period
        • Solving Oak Island
      • Religious Conspiracies >
        • Pantera, Father of Jesus?
        • Toledot Yeshu
        • Peter of les Vaux-de-Cernay on Cathars
        • Testimony of Jean de Châlons
        • Rosslyn Chapel and the 'Prentice's Pillar
        • The Many Wives of Jesus
        • Templar Infiltration of Labor
        • Louis Martin & the Holy Bloodline
        • The Life of St. Issa (Hoax)
        • On the Person of Jesus Christ
      • Giants in the Earth >
        • Fossil Origins of Myths >
          • Fossil Teeth and Bones of Elephants
          • Fossil Elephants
          • Fossil Bones of Teutobochus
          • Fossil Mammoths and Giants
          • Giants' Bones Dug Out of the Earth
          • Fossils and the Supernatural
          • Fossils, Myth, and Pseudo-History
          • Man During the Stone Age
          • Fossil Bones and Giants
          • American Elephant Myths
          • The Mammoth and the Flood
          • Fossils and Myth
          • Fossil Origin of the Cyclops
          • Mastodon, Mammoth, and Man
        • Fragments on Giants
        • Manichaean Book of Giants
        • Geoffrey on British Giants
        • Alfonso X's Hermetic History of Giants
        • Boccaccio and the Fossil 'Giant'
        • Book of Howth
        • Purchas His Pilgrimage
        • Edmond Temple's 1827 Giant Investigation
        • The Giants of Sardinia
        • Giants and the Sons of God
        • The Magnetism of Evil
        • Tertiary Giants
        • Smithsonian Giant Reports
        • Early American Giants
        • The Giant of Coahuila
        • Jewish Encyclopedia on Giants
        • Index of Giants
        • Newspaper Accounts of Giants
        • Lanier's A Book of Giants
      • Science and History >
        • Halley on Noah's Comet
        • The Newport Tower
        • Iron: The Stone from Heaven
        • Ararat and the Ark
        • Pyramid Facts and Fancies
        • Argonauts before Homer
        • The Deluge
        • Crown Prince Rudolf on the Pyramids
        • Old Mythology in New Apparel
        • Blavatsky on Dinosaurs
        • Teddy Roosevelt on Bigfoot
        • Devil Worship in France
        • Maspero's Review of Akhbar al-zaman
        • The Holy Grail as Lucifer's Crown Jewel
        • The Mutinous Sea
        • The Rock Wall of Rockwall
        • Fabulous Zoology
        • The Origins of Talos
        • Mexican Mythology
        • Chinese Pyramids
        • Maqrizi's Names of the Pharaohs
      • Extreme History >
        • Roman Empire Hoax
        • American Antiquities
        • American Cataclysms
        • England, the Remnant of Judah
        • Historical Chronology of the Mexicans
        • Maspero on the Predynastic Sphinx
        • Vestiges of the Mayas
        • Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel
        • Origins of the Egyptian People
        • The Secret Doctrine >
          • Volume 1: Cosmogenesis
          • Volume 2: Anthropogenesis
        • Phoenicians in America
        • The Electric Ark
        • Traces of European Influence
        • Prince Henry Sinclair
        • Pyramid Prophecies
        • Templars of Ancient Mexico
        • Chronology and the "Riddle of the Sphinx"
        • The Faith of Ancient Egypt
        • Spirit of the Hour in Archaeology
        • Book of the Damned
        • Great Pyramid As Noah's Ark
        • Richard Shaver's Proofs
    • Alien Encounters >
      • US Government Ancient Astronaut Files >
        • Fortean Society and Columbus
        • Inquiry into Shaver and Palmer
        • The Skyfort Document
        • Whirling Wheels
        • Denver Ancient Astronaut Lecture
        • Soviet Search for Lemuria
        • Visitors from Outer Space
        • Unidentified Flying Objects (Abstract)
        • "Flying Saucers"? They're a Myth
        • UFO Hypothesis Survival Questions
        • Air Force Academy UFO Textbook
        • The Condon Report on Ancient Astronauts
        • Atlantis Discovery Telegrams
        • Ancient Astronaut Society Telegram
        • Noah's Ark Cables
        • The Von Daniken Letter
        • CIA Psychic Probe of Ancient Mars
        • Scott Wolter Lawsuit
        • UFOs in Ancient China
        • CIA Report on Noah's Ark
        • CIA Noah's Ark Memos
        • Congressional Ancient Aliens Testimony
        • Ancient Astronaut and Nibiru Email
        • Congressional Ancient Mars Hearing
        • House UFO Hearing
      • Ancient Extraterrestrials >
        • Premodern UFO Sightings
        • The Moon Hoax
        • Inhabitants of Other Planets
        • Blavatsky on Ancient Astronauts
        • The Stanzas of Dzyan (Hoax)
        • Aerolites and Religion
        • What Is Theosophy?
        • Plane of Ether
        • The Adepts from Venus
      • A Message from Mars
      • Saucer Mystery Solved?
      • Orville Wright on UFOs
      • Interdimensional Flying Saucers
      • Flying Saucers Are Real
      • Report on UFOs
    • The Supernatural >
      • The Devils of Loudun
      • Sublime and Beautiful
      • Voltaire on Vampires
      • Demonology and Witchcraft
      • Thaumaturgia
      • Bulgarian Vampires
      • Religion and Evolution
      • Transylvanian Superstitions
      • Defining a Zombie
      • Dread of the Supernatural
      • Vampires
      • Werewolves and Vampires and Ghouls
      • Science and Fairy Stories
      • The Cursed Car
    • Classic Fiction >
      • Lucian's True History
      • Some Words with a Mummy
      • The Coming Race
      • King Solomon's Mines
      • An Inhabitant of Carcosa
      • The Xipéhuz
      • Lot No. 249
      • The Novel of the Black Seal
      • The Island of Doctor Moreau
      • Pharaoh's Curse
      • Edison's Conquest of Mars
      • The Lost Continent
      • Count Magnus
      • The Mysterious Stranger
      • The Wendigo
      • Sredni Vashtar
      • The Lost World
      • The Red One
      • H. P. Lovecraft >
        • Dagon
        • The Call of Cthulhu
        • History of the Necronomicon
        • At the Mountains of Madness
        • Lovecraft's Library in 1932
      • The Skeptical Poltergeist
      • The Corpse on the Grating
      • The Second Satellite
      • Queen of the Black Coast
      • A Martian Odyssey
    • Classic Genre Movies
    • Miscellaneous Documents >
      • The Balloon-Hoax
      • A Problem in Greek Ethics
      • The Migration of Symbols
      • The Gospel of Intensity
      • De Profundis
      • The Life and Death of Crown Prince Rudolf
      • The Bathtub Hoax
      • Crown Prince Rudolf's Letters
      • Position of Viking Women
      • Employment of Homosexuals
      • James Dean's Scrapbook
      • James Dean's Love Letters
      • The Amazing James Dean Hoax!
    • Free Classic Pseudohistory eBooks
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