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13 maltatoday | WEDNESDAY • 23 NOVEMBER 2022 OPINION Flint Dibble is Marie-Sklowdowska Curie Research Fellow, School of History, Archaeology and Religion, Cardiff University NETFLIX'S enormously popular new show, Ancient Apocalypse, is an all out attack on archaeolo- gists. As an archaeologist com- mitted to public engagement who strongly believes in the relevance of studying ancient people, I feel a full-throated defence is necessary. Author Graham Hancock is back, defending his well-trodden theory about an advanced global ice age civilisation, which he con- nects in Ancient Apocalypse to the legend of Atlantis. His argu- ment, as laid out in this show and in several books, is that this ad- vanced civilisation was destroyed in a cataclysmic flood. The survivors of this advanced civilisation, according to Han- cock, introduced agriculture, ar- chitecture, astronomy, arts, maths and the knowledge of "civilisation" to "simple" hunter gatherers. The reason little evidence exists, he says, is because it is under the sea or was destroyed by the cataclysm. "Perhaps," Hancock posits in the first episode, "the extremely de- fensive, arrogant, and patronising attitude of mainstream academia is stopping us from considering that possibility". The pseudo fish defence In the opening dialogue of An- cient Apocalypse, Hancock re- jects being identified as an ar- chaeologist or scientist. Instead, he calls himself a journalist who is "investigating human prehisto- ry". A canny choice, as the label "journalist" helps Hancock rebut being characterised as a "pseudo archaeologist" or "pseudo scien- tist", which, as he puts it himself in episode four, would be like calling a dolphin a "pseudo fish". From my perspective as an ar- chaeologist, the show is surpris- ingly (or perhaps unsurprisingly) lacking in evidence to support Hancock's theory of an advanced, global ice age civilisation. The on- ly site Hancock visits that actually dates to near the end of the ice age is Göbekli Tepe in modern Tur- key. Instead, Hancock visits sever- al North American mound sites, pyramids in Mexico, and sites stretching from Malta to Indone- sia, which Hancock is convinced all help prove his theory. How- ever, all of these sites have been published on in detail by archaeol- ogists, and a plethora of evidence indicates they date thousands of years after the ice age. Hancock argues that viewers should "not rely on the so-called experts", implying they should re- ly on his narrative instead. His at- tacks against "mainstream archae- ologists", the "so-called experts" who "practice censorship" are stri- dent and frequent. After all, as he puts in in episode six, "archaeolo- gists have been wrong before and they could be wrong again". Steph Halmhofer, a PhD candi- date at the University of Alberta who studies the use of pseudo archaeology and erasure of indig- enous heritage by far-right groups, suggests that these attacks on ar- chaeologists function to increase his sense of authority with view- ers. As Halmhofer explains: "It's about conspiracism and the positioning of Hancock as the vic- tim of a conspiracy. The repeated disparaging remarks about ar- chaeologists and other academics in every episode of Ancient Apoc- alypse is needed to remind the audience that the alternative past being proposed is true, regardless of the lack of conclusive evidence for it. And the vagueness of who this supposed advanced civili- sation was, combined with the credence given to it by being in a Netflix-produced series, is going to make Ancient Apocalypse an easily mouldable source for an- yone looking to fill in a fantasied mythical past." Dangers of pseudo archaeology In the last decade we have seen how conspiracy theories and distrust in experts impacts the world around us. And research has shown how pseudo archae- ology – especially when couched in anti-intellectual rhetoric – can overlap with more dangerous con- spiracy thinking. Of course, archaeologists fre- quently admit when we have been wrong. Any academic teaching "Archaeology 101" or applying to fund a new study points out how new evidence updates our picture of the past. Despite the fact that every scientific field updates its thinking with new evidence, ac- cording to Hancock, any rewrites to history mean that archaeol- ogists, his "so-called experts," should not be relied upon. Despite repeated claims made by Hancock, no archaeologists today see stone age hunter-gath- erers or early farmers as "simple" or "primitive". We see them as complex people. Priming viewers to distrust archaeologists, also al- lows Hancock to use circular logic to re-date these sites. The murky origins of Hancock's theories Hancock claims in his book Magicians of the Gods that as the "implications" of his theories "have not yet been taken into ac- count at all by historians and ar- chaeologists, we are obliged to contemplate the possibility that everything we have been taught about the origins of civilisation could be wrong". However, ar- chaeologists have repeatedly ad- dressed his theories in academic publications, on TV and in main- stream media. Most glaring to scholars inves- tigating the history of Hancock's pseudo archaeology is that while claiming to "overthrow the par- adigm of history," he doesn't ac- knowledge that his overarching theory is not new. Scholars and journalists have pointed out that Hancock's ideas recycle the long since discredited conclusions drawn by American congressman Ignatius Donnelly in his book Atlantis: The Antediluvi- an World, published in 1882. Donnelly also believed in an ad- vanced civilisation – Atlantis – that was wiped out by a flood over 10,000 years ago. He claimed that the survivors taught Indigenous people the secrets of farming and monumental architecture. Like many forms of pseudo ar- chaeology, these claims act to re- inforce white supremacist ideas, stripping Indigenous people of their rich heritage and instead giv- ing credit to aliens or white peo- ple. Hancock even cites Donnelly directly in his 1995 book Finger- prints of the Gods, claiming: "The road system and the sophisticat- ed architecture had been 'ancient in the time of the Incas,' but that both 'were the work of white, au- burn-haired men'." While skin colour is not brought up in An- cient Apocalypse, the repetition of the story of a "bearded" Quetzal- coatl (an ancient Mexican deity) parrots both Donnelly's and Han- cock's own summary of a white and bearded Quetzalcoatl teach- ing native people knowledge from this "lost civilisation". Hancock's mirroring of Don- nelly's race-focused "science" is seen more explicitly in his essay, Mysterious Strangers: New Find- ings About the First Americans. Like Donnelly, Hancock finds de- pictions of "caucasoids" and "ne- groids" in Indigenous American art and (often mistranslated) my- thology, even drawing attention to some of the exact same sculptures as Donnelly. This sort of "race science" is out- dated and long since debunked, especially given the strong links between Atlantis and Aryans pro- posed by several Nazi "archaeolo- gists". These are the reasons why ar- chaeologists will continue to re- spond to Hancock. It isn't that we "hate him" as he claims, it is simply that we strongly believe he is wrong. His flawed thinking implies that Indigenous people do not deserve credit for their cultur- al heritage. Netflix labels Ancient Apoca- lypse a docuseries. IMDB calls it a documentary. It's neither. It's an eight-part conspiracy theory that weaponises dramatic rhetoric against scholars. With Netflix's Ancient Apocalypse, Graham Hancock has declared war on archaeologists Flint Dibble Graham Hancock at Ggantija temples