midterm 2 Flashcards
Anne Stine Ingstad
Instads wife and archeaologist that directed the excatvation of Norse turf houses in L’Anse aux Meadows
Olof Öhman
found the kensington runestone with viking writing on it which would confirm westernmost exploration by the Norse in the New World
José Melgar
Discovered the first Olmec colossal head and did not document it well
Zheng He
ZhengHe led grand voyages to places around Asia. Chinese fleet admiral during the Ming Dynasty.
Gavin Menzies
Argued for chinese presence before the arrival of Columbus. Wrote a book “ The Year China Discovered the World” and it is a fraud
Lewis Henry Morgan
Morgan suggested the idea that culture evolves in progressive and linear stages, with each stage corresponding to certain
types of “technology”
Stages:
* Savagery: Fishing, bow & arrow (Aboriginals)
* Barbarism: Ceramics, domestication of
plants/animals, metal working (Native
Americans)
* Civilization: Writing, phonetic alphabet,
creation of laws (Greeks, Europeans)
* Assumptions:
* Implied a racialized worldview
* Certain races/cultures will always be more
“civilized” (i.e. superior) than others
* Used as a justification for European Colonial
Rule
Matest Agres
suggested that certain Biblical passages
(including the Old Testament reference of
Nephilim “falling” from the sky) represent actual
eyewitness accounts of contact with E.T.s,
interpreted from the viewpoint of a technological
primitive people.
K’inich Janaab Pakal I
ajaw (“ruler”) of the Maya city-state of
Palenque during the Late Classic
Period. Von Däniken incorrectly labeled the sarcophagus as
from Copán, and compared Pakal’s pose the Project
Mercury astronauts in the 1960s
Thomas Jefferson
president of the United States. Jefferson. In 1784 Jefferson conducted what is almost certainly the first archaeological excavation in North America, carefully digging a trench through a mound that contained many human skeletons. Jefferson drew no conclusion concerning who the mound builders were, calling for more work on the mystery.
Cyrus Thomas
was hired to direct the Division of Mound Exploration within the Bureau of American Ethnology. . Prior to this
appointment, he had believed the mounds were built by an advanced race that no longer existed. But he abandoned this type of thinking for a more empirical approach seeking to ask one question: Were the mounds
built by the Indians? Thomas’ research became a
cornerstone of modern scientific
archaeology and laid to rest the myth
of a Lost Race of Mound Builders.
To Thomas, it was clear that Native
groups were responsible for the
construction of earthworks across the
United States.
Hernando de Soto
Spanish conquistador Hernando de Soto explored the
southeastern United States between 1540-1542. He
encountered mound-builders living in fortified towns
with large mounds and plazas
Caleb Atwater
Caleb Atwater, an American politician, historian, and early Ohio archaeologist, pioneered the study of earthworks in the Ohio Valley. In his 1820 work, “Antiquities Discovered in the Western United States,” Atwater categorized Ohio Valley archaeological remains into Indian, European colonial, and Mound Builder groups. He believed the Mound Builders were more advanced than Native Americans but less so than Europeans, suggesting they might have been “Hindoos” from India, challenging the conventional view of indigenous American capabilities.
Plato
The Source of the
Legend Atlantis
Erich von Däniken
proposed that there was indisputable and copious archaeological support for his claim that extraterrestrial aliens had visited Earth in prehistory and had played a significant role in the development of humanity.
Poseidon
the tale is continued. Atlantis was
allotted to the Greek god Poseidon, and the first
Atlanteans were descended from the god and a
mortal girl named Cleito. Their offspring, led by
Atlas, ruled various cities and lands in Atlantis
Ignatius Donnelly
Donnelly’s theories are considered the
source for many modern-day concepts of
Atlantis, including the idea that an
advanced Ice Age civilization was the
single origin for all races and past
technological achievements across the
globe.
Donnelly lays out his arguments in
extreme detail, and presents 13
distinct claims
Brasseur de Bourbourg
“translated”
the Troano [Madrid] Codex (a Maya
illustrated book) in 1864, associating
the work with elements of the Atlantis
story, including destruction by flood.
Augustus Le Plongeon
also translated
the same codex, connecting the Maya to the ancient
Egyptians. Both translations were
complete fantasy.
Helena Blavatsky
Theosophy was a new occult
movement which argued an “ancient
wisdom” of a true, pre-flood knowledge
underlying the world’s religions. This
knowledge was held by a secret
brotherhood centered somewhere in
Tibet.
* In The Secret Doctrine (1888), Blavatsky
described a series of “root races” which
inhabited the planet before humans,
including Lemurians and Atlanteans
Edgar Cayce
- American clairvoyant, “The Sleeping Prophet”
- Conducted 14,000+ psychic readings on past lives, reincarnation, afterlife, and Atlantis
- Founded the Association for Research and Enlightenment in 1931
- Explored alternative spirituality and healing
- Support from notable figures: Thomas Edison, George Gershwin, Woodrow Wilson
Frank Drake
He is best known for the Drake Equation, an
attempt to estimate the number of
extraterrestrial civilizations in the Milky Way
Galaxy.
Carl Sagan
he published the article Direct
Contact among Galactic Civilizations by
Relativistic Interstellar Spaceflight, using
scientific methods to explore ideas about
“ancient astronauts”.
Maria Reiche
- First archaeologists to study Nazca Lines in depth
- Started in 1941, mapped the lines from ground and air
- Noted mathematical precision in the lines
- Maria Reiche, “Lady of the Lines,” suggested the figures were astronomical markers
- Proposed they indicated sunrise positions of the sun and celestial bodies on culturally significant dates
- Devoted her life to understanding the geoglyphs
Helena Blavatsky
- Ukrainian mystic, spiritualist, and author
- Co-founded Theosophical Society in New York City in 1875
- Theosophy: a new occult movement emphasizing “ancient wisdom” underlying world religions
- Believed in a pre-flood knowledge held by a secret brotherhood in Tibet
- “The Secret Doctrine” (1888): Described “root races” preceding humans, including Lemurians and Atlanteans
Newark Holy Stone
- Artifacts discovered by David Wyrick in 1860 at Newark Earthworks in Ohio
- Stone bowl, Decalogue, and Keystone made of sandstone
- Keystone inscribed in Hebrew with phrases like “Holy of Holies,” “King of the Earth”
- Decalogue Stone has a condensed version of the Ten Commandments with Moses holding a tablet
- Rabbi Abraham Geiger determined the first stone was in modern Hebrew; Decalogue stone in archaic Hebrew
- Wyrick suspected of faking artifacts; supported the idea that Lost Tribes of Israel were ancestors of Ohio mound builders
- Archaeologist Brad Lepper suggests inspiration from Austen Henry Layard’s book on Assyrian ruins (1853).