I think it is absolutely the job of archeologists to combat the claims and the work of psuedoarcheologists. In class we talk a lot about how psuedo archeologists discredit real archeology – should it not be the other way around? One problem I can see happening with this is that archeologists are so busy with regular field work and research. This may be why recently they have not had the time to combat all of the crazy things that psuedo archeologists say. I think every archeologist should focus on the pseudo archeological claims in their areas of studies (or area of the world they specialize in). Maybe there could be a group of archeologists who only work on debunking hoaxes, and discrediting them as real archeology. This could even be integrated in a college major in the future – coupling archeology even more with research.
Another way I think that we could combat this issue is just by archeologists doing their normal job – by spreading knowledge around the world about the past. I think if the general public was more knowledgeable of the tool kit we learned about at the beginning of this class, the world would be much so much less vulnerable to falling into the trap of these seemingly true hoaxes. Instead of their being tv shows like ancient aliens, more tv shows or documentaries could be made on disproving things like Atlantis and ancient aliens. This type of thing could draw less educated people in and help them reason through why pseudoarchaeology is not real and how to spot it in every day life.
This would especially benefit people of my parents age who are out of college and are not in a research based profession. I know my dad enjoys watching these kinds of shows – there is one that exists that debunks magic tricks and it had a lot of success.
I think too many people believe everything they hear. The archeological community as a whole I think needs to be louder and more aggressive with taking on false statements. Exposure is the key to get this problem resolved. As I stated before, I think that there should be a separate sector of archeologists or even professors to use our tool kit or similar to work more on the issues brought up in class. This would really save archeologists themselves because their work is not getting as much credit as it would if these pseudo archeological claims did not exist.
I agree with your stance that archaeologists should actively fight to counteract pseudoarchaeological claims. Pseudsceicne threatens and discredits archaeologists’ work, and the archaeology community does not do much to fight against it in terms of public knowledge. Your blog post was very well written and you brought up a lot of great points. One of my favorite things that you mentioned was creating an archaeology subfield, if you will, that focuses directly on pseudoarchaeology and combatting it. This is genius, making this it’s own subfield and creating majors and jobs to be proactive against the pseudoscience that is tearing apart the archaeological community is a perfect suggestion. Accompanied by widespread accessibility, whether a television show, blog, YouTube channel, in order to get the information to the public easily, this could be a possible solution. Like you had said, there are nearly not enough material on television that portrays archaeology in the factual sense. Many people are drawn to shows like Ancient Aliens, like your dad, but presenting them with another option that could help educate them so they can decipher pseudoscience from facts could be super beneficial to the public’s perception of archaeology and science in general. This class has helped educate me and I feel that now I am able to more efficiently find factual information. If we could educate the public in the same way, maybe it could help dismantle pseudoscience as a whole.