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Irrationality and Popular Archaeology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Kenneth L. Feder
Kenneth L. Feder*
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, Central Connecticut State University, New Britain, CT 06050
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Abstract

An important aspect of archaeology is communicating the significance of data and research results to a fascinated, although often uninformed public. However, on the basis of book sales, newspaper coverage, television programming, and film presentations, it would seem that the public is inordinately fascinated by the more extreme, speculative, and often pseudoscientific claims made by those purporting to use archaeological data. Through questionnaires distributed to undergraduate students and to professional, teaching archaeologists, I made an attempt to comprehend the nature of the public's appetite for pseudoscientific archaeological claims. The role of education in refuting or perpetuating pseudoscience in archaeology was then assessed.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 49 , Issue 3 , July 1984 , pp. 525 - 541
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Archaeology 1984

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