7 thinkers, books, and ideas connected to this field.
Erich von Daniken's 1968 argument — that ancient monuments (pyramids, Nazca lines, Stonehenge) were built with extraterrestrial assistance — the founding text of the ancient astronaut genre — which sold 70M copies despite universal rejection by archaeologists.
American archaeologist at Cardiff University who became the public face of academic archaeology's critique of Graham Hancock — most famously in a 3-hour debate on the Joe Rogan Experience — representing evidence-based archaeology against alternative history claims.
American archaeologist who studies astronomical alignments in Native American effigy mound sites in Wisconsin — connecting archaeological evidence of ancient sky-watching to questions about the relationship between cosmic symbolism and human consciousness.
Scottish archaeologist and television presenter who presented Coast, A History of Scotland, and Vikings for the BBC — the most prominent public archaeologist in Britain — who has become a prominent voice of lockdown skepticism and civil liberties advocacy.
Brian Muraresku's 2020 argument — that ancient Greek mystery religions (especially Eleusis) used psychedelic beverages, that early Christianity adopted these rites, and that psychedelic experience is the origin of Western religion — combining classical scholarship with chemical archaeology.
British anthropologist and co-author (with David Graeber) of The Dawn of Everything — a radical re-reading of the archaeological and anthropological record to challenge standard narratives of social evolution.
American archaeologist whose The Collapse of Complex Societies (1988) provides the leading theoretical account of why complex societies collapse — through the diminishing returns on complexity.