8/30/2019 Everything New is Old, The History of Psuedoarchaeolgy and Archaeology.

– Archaeological Fantasies

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Everything New is Old, The

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Have I mentioned I’m doing my thesis lately? I feel like maybe I haven’t…

What this really is, is an excuse for is so that I can read all these books I have piling up in
more depth. I’ve put them in some order, ish, and I’ve decided to share my thoughts with
you all as I go.

I started with Lost Tribes & Sunken Continents; Myth and Method in the Study of
American Indians by Robert Wauchope. I’m enjoying this book as it’s written openly and
conversationally. Also, the little hints of 1960’s sexism amuse me. I think the most
important aspects of this book are how everything is just on a cycle of rinse, later, repeat
when it comes to the fringe and pseudoarchaeology — keeping in mind that my printing
of the book is from 1962 – reading the stories and issues that Wauchope shares rings a
familiar bell.

In the rst few chapters, Wauchope talks about lost tribes and Lost cultures. He starts
with the Maya and the exciting idea that some people in the late 1800’s had that the
ancient Mayans actually traveled to Europe and thereby populated it. He focuses early on
Augustus Le Plongeon the French amateur archaeologist from the late 19th century. e

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comparisons between Le Plongeon and modern-day writers like Graham Hancock, Eric
fund and again, and Scott Wolter is probably more striking than it should be. e writers
above directly re lect the fervent obsession that Le Plongeon shows to his theories. Even
though their writing almost 150 years between each other.

I feel like Wauchope did an excellent job of pointing out the ideas and “theories” that Le
Plongeon and his cohorts held and argued over. I will say that Roberts language at times
is not what we consider polite anymore. Wauchope seems to take to the idea of
combating pseudoarchaeology with ridicule and humor. He does, however, mention
several times the damage that pseudoarchaeology goal claims like these can have. His
words nearly verbatim what modern archaeologists say today. I suppose the signi cant
di ference between Wauchope writing in the 1960s and archaeologists writing about
pseudoarchaeology today is that the damage of pseudoarchaeology the Wauchope was
speculating could occur, as come to pass. We, the archaeologists of the 2020s, now have
to deal with most of these ideas that Wauchope brings up, being mainstream “theories”
that get more air time and media exposure than real archaeology could hope for, at least
here in the Americas.

It is fascinating to me to know that someone was dropping warnings about the e fects of
pseudoarchaeology back in the 1960s. It’s not that pseudoarchaeology didn’t exist before
this point; however, it is a little disheartening to know that we were being warned and not
enough people listened.

It’s also good to see how Wauchope immediately takes the pseudoarchaeology topics he
tackles in his book to task over their racism. He calls out to this particular trait in the rst
chapter of his concise book. e reason it’s so interesting to me is that the inherent
racism of pseudo-archaeological claims is a major focus of debunking e forts these days.
To see that it was being addressed 60 years ago kinda tells you something. It means
archaeologists recognized the wrongness of the hyper-di fusionism idea of a parent
race/culture early and were sensitive to the implications of such a claim.

It’s also interesting to see Wauchope talking about Le Plongeon and other not-yet-fringe
archaeologists in the same way that archaeologists today talk about our own fringe and
their ideas.

I guess the best way to put it is it’s like hearing a Justin Berber remake of a Queen song,
then hearing his fans accuse Queen of ripping o f Justin Berber. ( and if you don’t think
that happened boy do I have a story for you). It’s a little surreal seeing something that you
deal with on the daily, being talked about as a clear issue 60 years before your own
interactions with the topic.

My other goal in reading this book is that I’m nally starting to understand where some
of these pseudoarchaeology ideas originated like in the case of Le Plongeon and his
theory of Mayan and Egyptian similarities.
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Interestingly enough, Le Plongeon did not suggest that Egyptians came to the Americas,
but rather that Mayans made it over to Egypt, thereby making American natives the
culture bearers to the Egyptians. I nd that to be an interesting twist to an old story, but
then have to remind myself that Le Plongeon was among one of the rst to start
promoting such things.

Wauchope also hits on the concepts of lost tribes, Hebrew Indians, and both the sunken
continents of Atlantis and Lemuria/Mu. I know Jeb has talked about the Mu stones more
than once, and I’ll link those podcast episodes down below. Wauchope, however, talks
about the origins of the idea of Lemuria/Mu. e purpose of this particular islands came
into being not for any supernatural reason, but because an early German biologist, Ernst
Jaekel, insisted that old world monkeys must’ve evolved on a now-vanished island in the
Indian Ocean because otherwise the diversity of the lemur couldn’t be explained. Ernst
was unfortunately wrong, and when presented with evidence showing such, he dropped
that idea.

However the island of Lemuria/Mu lived on, and though it’s not as popular as Atlantis,
even today, it’s still just as mysterious.

I am only about halfway through this book because it takes forever to read anything when
you’re reading it for school. I am looking forward to the future topics in the book though,
especially Chapter 8 titled “ e Righteous and the Racists.”

I’m looking forward to seeing how little concepts and ideas in pseudoarchaeology have
changed over the past 60 years. is, despite being continuously confronted by not only
skeptics but professional archaeologists and scientists too.

We’re on YouTube again!

If you’d like to support the Podcast or site, consider donating to us on Patreon or buy us
a  Ko-Fi. Either option helps us out.

Check out Jeb Card’s new book Spooky Archaeology :

Myth and the Science of the Past

And Ken Feder’s new book Archaeological Oddities: A Field Guide to Forty Claims of Lost
Civilizations, Ancient Visitors, and Other Strange Sites in North America

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You can follow us on twitter @ArchyFantasies, or look us up on Facebook. You can reach

us by email at ArchyFantasies@gmail.com.

Contact us below or leave a comment.

Resources:

Jeb Card and the Mu Stones, AF Podcast 35

Dr. Jeb Card and the ‘Mu Stones’ – My-Mu Blog

Dr. Jeb Card and the Mu Stones – Youtube vid

From Miami University to the Lost Continent of Mu

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Published by ArchyFantasies
An active Archaeologist myself, I've gotten a bit tired of the use of bad science and
archaeology to defend and "prove" made up claims. In this vein my videos should help others
who are are not familiar with how Archaeology actually works understand the truth and see
through the misleading lies of others

 View all posts by ArchyFantasies

August 30, 2019

ArchyFantasy Reviews, Books, History of Archaeology, Tales of Grad School

Augustus Le Plongeon, Egypt, Lemuria, Mayan Connection, mayans, Mu Stones

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