Mark your calendar for the 2018 SunWatch Lecture Series: Science vs Pseudoscience.
Lectures are every third Saturday from January – April. Lectures are held in the Prairie View room and begin at 10:30 a.m. Admission to these special lectures is FREE to the public.
Location: SunWatch Indian Village/Archaeological Park, 2301 W. River Road, Dayton, OH 45418
The Masonic Key: The Influence of Freemasonry on Archaeology
Saturday, January 20, 10:30 a.m.
The first presentation in the AIA/SunWatch Winter 2018 Lecture Series: Science vs Pseudoscience presented by Dr. David S. Anderson, Adjunct Professor of Anthropological Sciences at Radford University.
The late 19th and early 20th century saw the rediscovery of ancient ruins, monuments, and temples around the world, including the cities of the Maya in Central America, the Harrapans in India, and the Inca in Peru. This explosion in discoveries occurred just as the profession of archaeology was coming into being, and archaeologists could not meet the demands of popular interest in these new ruins. As such many travelers and speculative thinkers sought to fill the gap and offer their impressions of the ruins. Some of these early authors had ties to the fraternal order of Freemasons and cast their writings in the legendary voice favored by many members of their Order. Masonic texts had long suggested that the Order’s traditions had originated among the mystery cults of ancient Greece and Egypt, but with the plethora of new ruins some Masonic authors sought to extend the Order’s origins further back in time. These texts created counter narratives to those produced by archaeologists, thereby creating the impressions of hidden histories and conspiracies to hide humanity’s true history. This talk will explore how these narratives echo through modern conspiracy theories and impact the ways in which the public perceives archaeology today.
Spooky Archaeology: Myth and the Science of the Past
Saturday, February 17, 10:30 a.m.
The second presentation in the AIA/SunWatch 2018 Lecture Series: Science vs Pseudoscience presented by Dr. Jeb Card, Visiting Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Miami University, Oxford, Ohio.
Outside of scientific journals, archaeologists are depicted as searching for lost cities and mystical artifacts in news reports, television, video games, and movies like Indiana Jones or The Mummy. This fantastical image has little to do with day-to-day science, yet it is deeply connected to why people are fascinated by the ancient past. People today continue to find the mystical and archaeology and have a fascination with exotic artifacts and eerie practices. Exploring the development of archaeology helps us understand what archaeology is and why it matters. In this presentation by Jeb J. Card, the audience will follow a trail of clues left by adventurers and professional archaeologists through haunted museums, mysterious hieroglyphic inscriptions, fragments of a lost continent that never existed, and deep into an investigation of magic and murder.
Archaeoastronomy Is Not All Bad
Saturday, March 17, 10:30 a.m.
The third presentation in the AIA/SunWatch 2018 Lecture Series: Science vs Pseudoscience presented by the Archaeological Institute of America’s R.S. Webster Lecturer for 2017-2018 Dr. Bradley Schaefer, Distinguished Professor and Alumni Professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Louisiana State University.
The basic archaeoastronomy paradigm is that the builders of ancient monuments intentionally incorporated alignments into their buildings so as to point towards astronomically significant directions around the horizon. The prototypical example is that the main Avenue at Stonehenge is pointed accurately and intentionally at the solstice sunrise/set direction. This offers the prospect of archaeologists uncovering a new type of information about the intellectual concerns for ancient cultures, even with no written records. Archaeoastronomy largely started with the publication of Gerald Hawkin’s runaway best-seller book “Stonehenge Decoded” in 1965. This book served as the template for much of archaeoastronomy since then. Unfortunately, the early enthusiasms of the field were often proved to be wrong, and subsequent fringe workers have since been making wild and unfounded claims that contradict what archaeologists and anthropologists well-know about those cultures. With these false claims being the ones widely publicized, the whole field of archaeoastronomy has been given a poor reputation, lasting even to today. Nevertheless, there is a solid core of archaeoastronomy from around the world that is reliably known and useful. In this Webster Lecture, I will highlight the many good archaeoastronomy results, and I will appeal for closer connections between working archaeologists and the current mainstream archaeoastronomers as being fruitful for both fields.
The Goliath of New York: Anatomy of an Archaeological Hoax
Saturday, April 21, 10:30 a.m.
The final presentation in the AIA/SunWatch 2018 Lecture Series: Science vs Pseudoscience presented by Archaeological Institute of America National Lecturer Dr. Ken Feder, Professor of Anthropology at Central Connecticut State University.
When Stub Newell, a farmer in upstate New York, uncovered the remains in October 1869 of what appeared to be a giant, recumbent man whose body had turned to stone, scientists, including the Yale Peabody’s paleontologist O. C. Marsh, immediately declared it to be “a remarkable humbug.” The pronouncements of geologists and archaeologists meant little, however, to the hordes who descended on the Newell farm to see the giant for themselves. Circus impresario P.T. Barnum was so impressed by the archaeological fake that he tried to purchase it for his sideshow. The perpetrator confessed just a few months after the giant’s discovery but the giant himself continues as a tourist attraction at the Farmers Museum in Cooperstown, New York. Though not nearly as well known as the Piltdown Man hoax, the Cardiff Giant fraud is one of the most instructive in the history of archaeology. And it’s much funnier.
Thanks to the Archaeological Institute of America and the generosity of an anonymous donor, admission to the 2018 Science vs Pseudoscience presentation series is free and open to the public. Regular admission fees apply for guests who wish to visit the museum and village before or after each presentation. Seating is available on a first-come, first-served basis. Pastries will be provided; guests are welcome to bring a beverage.
Source: SunWatch home page and Facebook page.