I believe that it is the professional responsibility of archeologists to confront pseudoarchaeology in whatever ways they can. If archaeologists were to combat pseudoarchaeologists on their dangerous rhetoric, especially within their particular areas, the harmful impacts of pseudoarchaeological beliefs could be minimized. I think that as a society, there’s been a shift from using religion to explain the world to using science for the same purpose. There are, as we discussed in the early parts of this class, fundamental differences between the ways religious knowledge and scientific knowledge are generated, but they’re both used to satisfy the human desire to have an explanation for the world we live in. It’s like how an orange isn’t a cantaloupe, but they’ll both stop you from getting scurvy. Religion and science, though very different, are tools to explain and understand the world. Therefore, as the generators of the knowledge that people use to understand the past, archaeologists have a responsibility to make sure that they are not misunderstood. Especially because we’ve seen the way that false histories and constructed past narratives can be used to fuel terrible things like genocide and systematic racism, this responsibility to give the public an accurate interpretation of the past extends to combating misinformation about said past.

One of the most important parts of the fight against pseudoarchaeology is public-facing work. Most people don’t have access to highly specialized scientific journals, and even if they did, they don’t have the domain knowledge necessary to connect with taxonomies of Mesoamerican potsherds (or whatever). Ancient Aliens (and similar programming) is exciting to watch and easy to interface with. I’m not advocating for archaeologists to sensationalize their work – but I think that more scientists in general should write for lay people and make their work publicly accessible for free. I think that social media is a powerful tool for academia to adapt to as a tool for spreading research to the public. However, as someone who works with faculty members on technology, I wouldn’t describe the majority of academics as tech-savvy (some of them are occasionally uncomfortable using Google Docs). There’s a gap between a professor and someone who knows how to edit a video clip of said professor to make it look like they said the Phoenicians built Stonehenge. Pseudoarchaeologists thrive on technology, but academia as a whole under utilizes the power of the internet as a tool to spread free, accessible information.