Hoaxes
What are hoaxes?
A lie to cover up or something that falsifies the truth.
Who was Zheng He?
The Admiral of the Chinese fleet
What is science?
Science is the study of the study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation and experimentation.
What refers to the rejection of the accepted scientific and analytical methods of the discipline, sometimes called alternative archaeology?
What is pseudo archaeology?
What refers to the combination of features, artifacts, ecofacts, environmental conditions, etc.
What is a site
What skeletal fragments were found creating the basis for the Piltdown hoax?
Skull and jawbone
What is one reason moundbuilders may have built earthen mounds?
religious and ceremonial reasons, political reasons, elite residential purposes, etc.
The simplest explanation that requires few other assumptions is normally the most correct. The attempt to not make assumptions.
What is Occam's Razor
Stratigraphy is defined as...
The deposition of layers or strata through time.
What do artifacts such as bronze and glass beads and ecofacts such as citrus and other botanical/faunal remains found in the New World indicate?
Contact between the New and Old Worlds
What was a motive for the piltdown hoax?
national pride or nationalism.
What was Gavin Menzies's theory?
The Chinese fleet sailed around the world and landed in North America probably in the Caribbean before Columbus in 1492.
What is Uniformitarianism?
The theory that geological processes that occurred in the past continue to occur today.
What is the law of superposition?
The oldest layers (or strata) will be found at the bottom of multiple layers of sediments.
What is shamanism?
Religious beliefs based on the concept of the shaman. A shaman is an individual that through possession is able to act as an intermediary in communication with the spirits.
Allegedly, a 10-foot-tall, roughly 3,000 pound "petrified man", was uncovered on October 16 1869 by workers digging a well behind the barn of William C. "Stub" Newell. Which hoax is this?
What is the Cardiff Giant
Where is one place that Atlantis has been proposed?
1. In the Caribbean near Bimini Island
2. Somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean
3. In relation to the Island of Thera in the Mediterranean Sea
4. Associated to the kingdom of Knossos on the island of Crete in the Mediterranean Sea.
What is a feature?
A non-portable artifact; an association of artifacts, ecofacts and environmental variables localized in the landscape.
What is the provenience
What was the first main civilization in Mexico that survived from around 2000 BC to AD 300 known for their rubber products?
Who were the Olmec?
Are the "Mayan crystal skulls" considered legitimate archaeological artifacts in Mesoamerica?
No. No crystal skulls have been recovered from an actual verified Mayan context or archaeological site.
What is one type of evidence Menzies use to support his theory?
1. Map showing parts of the new world no one should have known about in Columbus's time
2. A map with islands of the Caribbean, but in the wrong location
3. Newport Tower that Menzies says the Chinese built but was likely a windmill built by the governor of Rhode Island in AD 1665.
What is hyperdiffusionism?
Hypothesis that postulates that certain historical technologies or ideas were developed by a single people or civilization and then spread to other cultures
What is the difference between artifacts and ecofacts?
Artifacts are objects used, modified, or made by people.
Ecofacts are organic or environmental components of a site.
Where does evidence of Viking settlements on mainland North America occur?
Canada and Maine