Pseudoarchaeology: A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing (Part 1)
Kia ora, In light of the heightened profile of pseudoarchaeology in the popular media recently, I thought I would write a bit on this blog about what pseudoarchaeology actually is and why it's a bad thing. What is pseudoarchaeology? Archaeology (as I have previously discussed in this blog ), is the study of past human societies through the material remains that those societies left behind. I have previously alluded to some of the careful data gathering practices and analytical methods that have become widely established in the discipline for very good reasons . Pseudo is a combining form meaning "false", "pretended", or "unreal", used in the formation of compound words such as pseudoarchaeology. Pseudoarchaeological interpretations of the past are not based on these widely accepted data gathering practices and analytical methods, yet give the false impression of being so. As noted by archaeologist David S. Anderson in a great tw