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South African Philosophy Professor Endorses Graham Hancock's Lost Civilization, Demands Paradigm Shift in Archaeology

12/12/2017

15 Comments

 
​One of the themes that I have hit upon more than once is the poverty of “new” ideas in fringe history. The same few topics come up time and again, in a few major variations. Once you’ve mastered Atlantis, hyperdiffusionism, the Nephilim, space aliens, and a handful of conspiracies theories revolving around lost races and tribes, Jews, the Holy Bloodline, and Freemasonry, you have pretty much been exposed to the root form of most of the claims you will encounter. Nevertheless, it surprises me to no end to see how these bad ideas keep seeping into conversation over the centuries. 
​Yesterday, South Africa’s Mail & Guardian newspaper published a blog post from Prof. Bert Olivier, who is a professor at Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University and also teaches philosophy at the University of the Free State and the University of KwaZulu-Natal. He was awarded the 2004 Stals Prize for Philosophy by the South African Akademie vir Kuns en Wetenskap, and his academic work focuses on postmodern interdisciplinary explorations of popular culture. In his blog post, Olivier endorsed the Graham Hancock hypothesis and basically accused archaeologists and historians of being close-minded.
 
Olivier opens his blog post with some puffery about the importance of paradigm shifts, and he then proceeds to offer a midcentury caricature of human history that reflects his own memories of his schoolboy lessons. It’s a depressing theme, really: Old men discover that the information they learned in the 1960s and 1970s has been superseded by new information, but mistakenly believe that no one else is aware of this fact and therefore the entire field of archaeology must be flawed.
 
Here is how Olivier describes what he thinks the field of archaeology teaches about human history, a view simplified from one popular in the middle twentieth century: 
It is safe to say that the conventional, or orthodox, assumption in archaeology, encountered in the vast majority of textbooks, and underpinning the bulk of ongoing archaeological research, amounts to the view that the earliest ‘advanced’ civilisation on Earth was that of ancient Egypt, which flourished approximately 3500 years BCE. As a corollary of this view it is accepted that before 10000 BCE – more or less when the agricultural revolution is supposed to have occurred – humans on the planet lived in small communities of hunter-gatherers, and were certainly not capable of ‘advanced’ cultural activities such as building structures evincing thorough knowledge of sophisticated, mathematically-informed building techniques.
​I need not point out that even in the middle twentieth century, it was recognized that Sumer predated Egypt. After all, the most famous book of the era on that subject was called History Begins at Sumer, and was published in 1956. Perhaps the issue is the question of what Olivier means by “advanced,” since archaeology has long since identified and explored the complexity of Neolithic civilizations. Çatalhöyük, for example, was excavated in the early 1960s and was discovered to have flourished from 7500 to 5700 BCE. It was an entire proto-city, and “advanced” relative to the hunter-gatherer criteria Olivier seems to hold as the baseline for defining culture.
 
Olivier follows the typically shortsighted view of the fringe historian, ranting inchoately about the idea that scholarly elites hold “the arguably narcissistic belief that contemporary society instantiates the most advanced technological society in the history of humankind.” His argument, taken from Hancock, is that if only we imagine a lost ancient society of technological supermen, we might will one into existence despite the lack of evidence for such a society. But more specifically his complaint is founded on a misunderstanding born of a fiction of progress carried over from Victorian times: 
This goes hand in hand with the view, that there was a gradual development from about 10000 years ago, through ancient Egyptian culture (and others such as ancient Greek and Persian cultures), as well as early and late modern civilisation, to where humanity is today, namely (supposedly) at the zenith of technically developed and oriented civilisation.
​This has not been the view of the majority of archaeologists or historians for centuries. Civilization, however you define it, moves in fits and starts, and it has long been recognized that an individual culture will go through periods of expansion, intensification, and growth, followed by periods of stagnation, constriction, and collapse. Taken together, the overall complexity of the cultures across the globe increases over time, since technological development builds on earlier innovations and allows for greater social and cultural complexity. But the process is not linear, and there is no guarantee, as they say, that past performance indicates future results. The idea of the arrow of progress went out of style a century ago, and you would think that a professor of philosophy would know something about that particular philosophical conceit.
 
But the depth of Olivier’s understanding becomes quite clear when he devotes space to praising Graham Hancock, whom he considered a thorough and detailed researcher: “Yet, as long ago as 1995 someone called Graham Hancock published an extensively researched book, Fingerprints of the Gods, the multiple references in which alone should convince one of the thoroughness of the research.” It flabbergasts me that someone can make it through graduate school without understanding that the number of references is irrelevant if the references are wrong. Does he not know that you need to actually check them? Hancock has a history of misrepresenting sources or using weak or discredited sources. It’s no wonder then that Olivier ends up endorsing claims that Hancock himself now considers inoperative, particularly Charles Hapgood’s ideas about “Earth-crust displacement” and its role in crushing the remains of a lost Ice Age civilization in Antarctica. It’s also touching that Olivier is so stuck in the twentieth century that he cites Hancock’s 1995 claims about Hapgood’s 1960s-era hypotheses, which in turn were based on Victorian ideas first proposed by Brasseur de Bourbourg in the 1870s, as “relevant evidence,” despite even Hancock having acknowledged that modern science makes such ideas virtually impossible.
 
The rest of the blog post is a straightforward summary of Hancock’s 2015 book Magicians of the Gods, and Olivier adds that Hancock has convinced him that the Turkish site of Göbekli Tepe, more than 10,000 years old, will force archaeologists to adopt the Hancock model of a lost civilization. Apparently, the philosopher is unable to conceive of a culture of hunter-gatherers who came together to build things without being told to do so by superior overlords in their far-off techno-metropolis. 
15 Comments
Riley V
12/12/2017 09:53:41 am

Jason,
This is why I love this blog. I always learn something new and fascinating.
Thank you.

Reply
E.P. Grondine
12/12/2017 10:16:30 am

Hi Jason -

Typo alert:

"This has not been the view of the majority of archaeologists or historians for centuries."

should read:

"This has not been the view of the majority of archaeologists or historians for decades."

The refutation of that model is the result of Colin Renfrew's work on the Radiocarbon Revolution.

"It’s also touching that Olivier is so stuck in the twentieth century that he cites Hancock’s 1995 claims about Hapgood’s 1960s-era hypotheses, which in turn were based on Victorian ideas first proposed by Brasseur de Bourbourg in the 1870s, as “relevant evidence,” despite even Hancock having acknowledged that modern science makes such ideas virtually impossible."

In my view, the key there was Augustus and Alice LePlongeon's incorporation of the ideas ot Brasseur de Bourberg into their new "religion", Theosophy. Perhaps that religion is one of the key factors for Bouber's nonsense being so widely and desperately desired by some people today.
Spiritual vacuum, meet cult con-men.

It appears Victorian adventures also play a role.
Banality of day to day ordinary life, meet "adventure".

Reply
Only Me
12/12/2017 12:56:08 pm

Another idiot speaking of things outside his wheelhouse.

I'm sure Hancock will boast to anyone who will listen that he has the support of a professor that looked into his research. He's at least clever enough to spin the story to his advantage.

Reply
Jonathan
12/12/2017 12:57:06 pm

Jason, I am impressed that you are able to post five days a week and work a regular job and be a father. Well done! I have a 10 year old and a 14 year old and I'm still not sure I could find the time or motivation to do what you do. Every day I look forward to reading your posts. Thank you!

Reply
An Anonymous Nerd
12/12/2017 06:38:44 pm

The problem is not a Professor being interested in, or even talking about, material outside of his or her area. Actually extreme specialization is one reason things like this happen. Folks sometimes never branch out at all and don't realize just how big the world is.

The problem is that he clearly didn't read anything about the field he was addressing. Like, anything. I found what appears to be the original blog post.

http://thoughtleader.co.za/bertolivier/2017/12/11/a-challenging-archaeological-perspective/

Reply
Americanegro
12/12/2017 08:21:42 pm

Nonsense! He read Graham Hancock's books!

Reply
Da Negro
12/12/2017 11:06:43 pm

OHHHH Talkin like white folks! Damm white folks like em da snowflake.

Jim
12/12/2017 10:04:53 pm

Perhaps someone from the Department of geology recommended Hancocks books.

Reply
An Anonymous Nerd
12/13/2017 07:20:25 am

Unlikely. You mention this because of the erosion thing on the Sphinx, right? (Or was that some other fringe person?) Anyway assuming we're thinking of the same thing, my understanding is that most Geologists don't agree with Hancock and his friend.

Paraphrasing from a book (either Ancient Mysteries or Ancient Innovations, I forget which): It's not Geology vs Archaeology, it's Archaeology and Geology vs. Hancock and his friend.

Jim
12/13/2017 04:23:30 pm

An Anonymous Nerd,,, "The problem is that he clearly didn't read anything about the field he was addressing. Like, anything. "

Sorry, not meant as a slight to geologists, I was referring to Scott Wolter and his Templars.

David Bradbury
12/13/2017 03:51:12 am

The funny thing is, Olivier is probably mistaken about the whole principle. If somebody comes up with a radical academic or scientific idea that's poorly researched, and outside their area of expertise, but may just contain the basis for a genuinely valid theory, the smart reaction from the mainstream would be for somebody within the relevant area of expertise to develop the theory with better research, and claim as much credit as possible.
In some cases, there will be multiple relevant areas of expertise, which would require cross-disciplinary cooperation (consider, for example, the messy history of plate tectonic theory) but even that is doable.

Reply
T. Franke link
12/13/2017 08:00:15 am

It is the typical example of somebody who is learned in one field and then thinks he easily could understand a totally different field of knowledge.

Here, it is a philosopher and social thinker, who touches history topics.

It is quite the same in Atlantis research: Most Atlantis searchers have skills in natural science, so they look for tsunamis, volcanoes, etc. But they have no skills in Ancient Greek philology and historical criticism, so they only can go wrong.

Reply
Hanslune
12/17/2017 11:31:50 am

Oh my another lemming joins the fringe world with the mission to lead them forward in the forthcoming ideological paradigm shift!

Having read that Hancock book I do not see how anyone with either a research base or a basic understanding of science would be convinced by its weak and contradictory arguments.

Philosophy huh....

Well written Jason, thanks

Reply
BobM
12/17/2017 06:51:31 pm

"through ancient Egyptian culture (and others such as ancient Greek and Persian cultures)"

Interesting, they just about always ignore thousands of years of Chinese culture and development when they're doing this crap.

Reply
Craig
7/21/2018 10:00:55 pm

Remove the cork from your ass.

Reply

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    • Miscellaneous Documents >
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      • The Amazing James Dean Hoax!
    • Free Classic Pseudohistory eBooks
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