Category Archives: Favorites

What is pseudoscience?

Posted on August 17, 2009 by cfeagans

Image by mot the hoople via Flickr At its most basic, pseudoscience is fake science. The prefix pseudo- meaning “fake”- followed by the word science. But it’s more than that. Or, I should say, it’s not just that. Pseudoscience involves … Continue reading →

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Sacrifice and the Anthropology of Religion

Posted on August 11, 2009 by cfeagans

Image via Wikipedia Mention the word “sacrifice” in a religious context and, for many people, thoughts of young virgins tossed in volcanoes by a Polynesian King or lying on altars below the obscenely sharp obsidian blade of an Aztec ruler. … Continue reading →

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Anthropology of Religion

Posted on July 29, 2009 by cfeagans

Image via Wikipedia I don’t often post on religious topics on this blog. At least not topics related to modern religion like Christianity. I’m more interested in ancient religion and expression of religion and belief in the material record of … Continue reading →

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Artificial Cranial Modification: Head Shaping

Posted on May 17, 2009 by cfeagans

Image via Wikipedia In addition to cranial surgery, another artificial modification of the human skull present in the archaeological record, which is perhaps better known, is skull shaping. Like trephination, this practice of modifying the shape of the human skull … Continue reading →

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Artificial Cranial Modification: Trephination

Posted on May 16, 2009 by cfeagans

Image by Luciana Christante via Flickr The practice of artificially modifying the human skull has been a part of human culture as far back as 45,000 years BP[1], and it has been shown to occur on every inhabited continent . … Continue reading →

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How to make casts of bone and stone

Posted on April 10, 2009 by cfeagans

In the United States, the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of 1990 () mandates special care and treatment of Native American cultural remains, particularly human remains. The single best discussion on the internet that includes the most sources … Continue reading →

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The ‘Ancient Underwater Ruins’ of Yonaguni, Japan

Posted on March 9, 2009 by cfeagans

One of the pseudo-archaeological claims that I see from time to time on the intertubes is the speculation that there are underwater ruins of an ancient civilization off the coast of Yonagumi. This by itself isn’t such a fantastic claim. … Continue reading →

Posted in Favorites, Pseudoarchaeology | Tagged , , , , , | 24 Comments

The First Americans Were Immigrants of Two Populations

Posted on January 11, 2009 by cfeagans

The most recent online issue of Current Biology has an article describing the research which reveals evidence that the first Americans immigrated via two distinct populations at around the same time. One population is comprised of haplogroup D4h3, which took … Continue reading →

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Alien Skulls? Not even close!

Posted on December 19, 2008 by cfeagans

If you’ve ever spent any time browsing a UFO forum or website, you’ll eventually run into a link or claim that the ancient Mesoamericans and Inca or worshiped aliens as gods. The “proof” is usually a skull much like the … Continue reading →

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The Chrysanthemum and the Sword: Reviewing an Ethnography

Posted on September 6, 2008 by cfeagans

I recently had the pleasure of reading Ruth Benedict’s The Chrysanthemum and the Sword, an ethnography done in an experimental style just at the end of World War II in 1946. Benedict studied anthropology under Franz Boas and was the … Continue reading →

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