Man fears Time. But Time fears the pyramids.

-Old Arab

proverb.

Reconstructing Lost Civilizations

Dr. Marco Menikettimarco.meniketti@sjsu.edu

Course webpage : www.sjsu.edu/people/marco.meniketti/courses/LostCiv

Dr. Zawi Hawass transfers mummified body from burial crypt to lab.

Modern forensic anthropology can reveal much about the past.

New discoveries in the Great Pyramid suggest new puzzles to solve.

Prehistoric carved artifacts from Europe 25,000-40,000 years old.

The very oldest “art” dates back more than 60,000 years.

Fresco of the Bull leaping ritual. Knossos, Crete ca.1400 BC. Reconstruction by Sir Arthur Evans. Was Crete and the Minoan civilization the origin of the Atlantis legend?

Neanderthal skeletons createda scientific controversy.

Scientific Hoax. Was Piltdown man a hoax by a prankster or a case of scientific fraud?

The Basics

About the texts Frauds Myths and Mysteries, Ken Feder The Human Past, Chris Scarre pdfs

About the lectures Themes Course structure

Specific required assignments

Instructional philosophy

Policies No late assignments.

Who is the professor?

Lotus collector. Fresco of woman; Akroteri, ca. 1500 BC.

Structure of Course

Major themes: Changing Paradigms, Scientific Methods and Human Interaction with Environment

Secondary theme: Pseudoscience and pseudoarchaeology: why it is harmful.

We will discuss archaeological findings in terms of perceptions and understandings at various points in history: the prevailing paradigm.

“I have found in my experience that it is considerably easier to fool someone than to convince someone they have been fooled.”

---Mark Twain

Why is it easier for people to imagine the end of the world [based on a pseudo-cryptic prophesy of a vanished civilization] than a new form of government, a new economic system, or the end of the Internet?

--Evgeny Morozov

(Paraphrasing Frederick Jameson)from: To Save Everything, CLICK Here

Strategies for Success

Keep up with the readings

Hand in assignments on time

Ask questions

Spend extra time on assigned papers… do more than one draft.

Powerpoint lectures are intended only as an outline, fill in notes as we go.

Factors influencing our understanding of the past… Note that I did not say

“knowledge” of the past. Interpretation of findings is always colored by contemporary thought, biases, prejudice, and prior knowledge.

Archaeologists are scientists, but they are also human, and not immune from the prejudices or paradigms of their day.

Archaeology has not always been “scientific.”

Epistemology

How do we know what we know?

How do we know what we know to be correct?

Are there different ways of knowing? Scientific “method” based

on positivist philosophy: the world is knowable. The past is knowable.

Who were the people of Ireland that built massive stone monuments centuries before the pyramids in Egypt?

Concept of Cognitive Dissonance We believe what we want to believe.

When confronted with evidence that contradicts long held beliefs, even strong evidence, the typical person experiences cognitive dissonance, and will seek rationalizations to justify continuing to hold onto their belief rather than adjust or reject their cherished misconception.

Archaeology is an interdisciplinary science Follows scientific

methodology. Uses multiple sources of

evidence. Interpretation must be

based on convergence of evidence from multiple data sets.

As with all sciences, archaeological interpretations are subject to revision, questioning, and modification based on new data.

Ceramic vessel from the Aegean, ca. 1200 BC. Minoan themes and style.

Cycladic

Basic methodology in science

Make observations. Collect data. Questions and hypothesis based on data. Test hypothesis through experiment. Make new observations Refinement of hypothesis or experiment. Share and Repeat…

Interpretation

If data do not support the hypothesis, then the hypothesis must be refined, revised or rejected. Contrary findings can not be dismissed or ignored.

Even after a hypothesis has been shown to be valid, testing of the hypothesis must be an on-going process.

Beware pseudo-interpretative frameworks post hoc, ergo propter hoc

“after it, therefore because of it”

The argument from ignorance “That which is not proven false, must be true.”

The argument from self-doubt “ I can think of no natural explanation so the explanation

must be supernatural.”

Rhetorical tools

Occams razor In most cases the simplest explanation for an

observed phenomenon is usually the correct one.

http://skeptic.com/posthoc.html

Not a scientific law, just a guideline for analysis of outrageous statements.

About the term paper for this course Basic research paper

Research and synthesis Multiple sources

Citation standards American Antiquity citation format. SAA

Required format and length. 3000 words minimum

Brief history of the roots to archaeology

Part 1

Private showrooms of stuff eventually give way to the creation of formal displays of stuff (museums) during 17th century.

People begin to ask questions about the stuff. People start to organize and classify stuff into

categories; patterns emerge. Systematic categorization created typological

paradigm.

Stuff becomes associated with particular peoples and time periods.

Antiquarianism 18th century to present. Treasure hunting. Academic inquiry…archaeology: from about

1825.

Combined with historical documents and scientific methods the past can be reconstructed, but will always be fragmented.

What can be learned about the past that has relevance to us today? Can we find insights that will help us with our modern problems? Can we find clues to human behaviors that have significance?