00:00.80 archpodnet All right? Welcome back to the pseudo archeology podcast episode 105 and we are discussing Graham Hancock's Netflix special among specials ancient apocalypse. So. I think with this segment. Let's talk a little about some of the examples right? Some of the specific bits and pieces of ancient apocalypse now I am not going to go over each bit. Of the 8 episodes and tell you frame by frame. What's wrong because that would take me forty six months and I just don't have that kind of time although I'd make it for you because I like you guys but I can't so I thought I would just pull some. Real common ah examples. You might have heard about before some kind of old school classics in the worst sense of the term before that I thought I'd ah touch on some of the tricks of the trade that you're going to see from episode 1 onward first. It does suck you in nice and slow I would say that the first 2 episodes are pretty mild actually. 01:22.98 archpodnet That's not to say that that not full of Bs and incorrect things and fabrications and you know, but the first 2 episodes you can just kind of cruise by and go yeah, okay, whatever but episode 3 and onward is where he really starts going for it. So he turns up the heat and by that he I mean that he gets more and more out there. His common trick is he will start with something that is scientifically valid. And he will also make it sound It's always something that sounds super sciencey right? It's something that has some sort of ring to it of academia like he'll talk about things like the younger dryas right? that sounds sciencey. He's not going to say the ice age when he can say the younger dryas so he accuses academics of being so closeted into their academic towers but at the same time. He uses the tricks that he accuses us of using oh and by the way he also totally dresses like a college professor I mean look at a picture of him. You know that is the most intentional thing ever right? He has the glasses the unkempt hair button down shirt. 02:51.75 archpodnet British accent he looks and seems way more like a professor than I do right? It's it's very calculated and it works on on people who are not suspecting right? So not only does he use sciencey words. He also will use technology like real technology on total fakery. That's really common like if I say I live in a 2 story house and you drive by my house. And you got dude I saw your house. It is a 1 story house then I go oh wait wait wait I just used some lidar technology to show you that it is indeed two stories. You see. It's always like this throwing of technology. Where you where you really don't need it or where it really doesn't do anything but just because the technology is there I mean they do this a ton with ground penetrating radar early on in the shows now ground penetrating radar isn't nearly as cool as it sounds but they know that and they're going to use it. With the idea of like ah we're just going to roll this ground penetrating radar over. We're going to see everything under the ground. You know that's not how it works but you see this kind of again and again another thing another old good old trope that they'll use is alignments alignments everywhere. Everything is aligned. 04:24.52 archpodnet You know and alignments are some of the cheesiest data in all of archeology. Even when alignments are real, they're they're very hard to prove. Even the best ones like I've seen one or 2 I've seen a handful in my life where I'm like okay this is real and obviously something like Stonehen you're like okay yeah, but pseudo archeologists take that alignment thing to like stupid heights because you can really align if you have 2 things you can kind of align them to anything. If that makes sense if you ah if you have some if you want to if if you have something you want to align to the sun you can basically just move yourself to a certain spot and align it to the sun you know, but looking at specifics I'd like to look at episode 4 episode 4 is where Graham Hancock dives into atlantis ah he dives into atlantis oh yeah, and he's proving Atlantis now to his sneaky credit. He doesn't say the term Atlantis that much he tends to go with like. Big civilization covered by the waves at about 10000 Bc right? because maybe I guess maybe he's thinking that Atlantis is so tired that maybe he'll just ruin his show but really, he's saying that Atlantis is that ancient civilization from thirteen thousand years ago that was covered by the. 05:53.49 archpodnet Waves in a great catastrophe to prove Atlantis he first pulls out the bimini road and you guys when he started talking about the bimini road this was a moment where I audibly. Sitting on my couch went boom because it's so fricking lame the bimini road. You guys have heard this It's a bunch of square stones in the Bahamas right in the Bahamas are in the Northern Hemisphere ah that well yes they're in the northern hemisphere by meant they're in North America you know a bit of a jaunt away from europe and those places where plato originally came up with atlantas anyway, these square stones that are in there shallow they're like twenty feet of water or something like this. 06:50.46 archpodnet Right? off the coast of one of the islands and in the Bahamas they are natural geological formations. This stupid ass bimini road thing has been debunked and debunked and debunked again like it's. So lame and when I saw that Graham was actually using the bimini road I'm like good christ man get a new show. You know good lord you guys have seen this the squarish stones that kind of look like pillow stones. Um, it's an it's a natural geological formation. The end. It's a perfect example of one hundred percent zero percent I am 100% right? He is 0% right? Not 20% not 40% the stupid bimini road thing is just a false story that has been. Disproven for decades and this is one that supporters of Graham Hancock they'll be like you need to disprove that you need to show us the evidence I'm like no I don't it's been done a hundred times to death you know, but exactly like creationists they never accept. Whatever data you have so there really there is no way of arguing somebody out of a religious movement and basically that's what Graham Hancock has he has religious followers. So just to add insult to injury. He does the. 08:19.39 archpodnet Stupid at bimini road thing and then he busts out an old school classic. Oh. It's like a fine wine. You guys. Let's just open the cork and smell this one. The Pey Res Map now old time listeners of my show meaning like four months ago or so. I did the peer res map right? in episode 1 on one I'll put a link below. So I went into a deep dive on the pey res map and that is a real map that was drawn and I believe it's fifteen thirteen don't quote me but it's right in there and it's. Ah, 2 thirdds of it are gone only there is only like one third remaining but the one third is of The Atlantic Ocean and you can see Africa and a bit of Europe and you can see north and South America now this is another one that's been debunked a 50000 times right? The idea about the pewre map is that. Explorers at that times found lands that are no longer around because there's like miscellaneous squares and stuff on on that map that are nothing. There's ah the coast of South America curves down and around the bottom of the entire map because they ran out of paper so they just drew it around the bottom. So a lot of pseudo archaeologistologists talks talk about how that's ancient explorers going to Antarctica but it's not It's obviously South America curved around and you got to think they're making this map while they're in a boat that's moving you know so it's not going to be the world's most perfect map but it's better than nothing. 09:53.34 archpodnet Good for them. Good for Prie Rees and 1513 but it ain't perfect I don't want to do my navigation of the Atlantic these days with the pe res map because it's way off. And also they just kind of fill in the blanks with Lay. Um, oh, there's probably an island there and you can tell that there's some totally just sort of faked islands again I nothing against pe reespe just drew some stuff because he's like we never got over there so we're just kind of guessing and they're obviously like square you know they're not even. They don't look natural but Graham Hancock is is arguing that one of the islands on the pe res map is Atlantis and it has some little kind of angular scribbles on it and he's like and that's the bimini road oh lord I had an aneurysm. When I watched that like I was watching then I'm like I can't feel the right hand side of my body you guys it was so dumb. But that's what you're getting out of this right? So those are 2 examples specific ones that. Have just been long debunked and there's like 40 more of those you know as you go through the episodes and obviously I'm not going to waste our time on that you know I'm I'm I'm just not because we just don't need to and of course if I'm going to be. 11:24.38 archpodnet Ah, talking about that stuff for people who don't believe it. It really is a waste of time because no matter how much hard evidence I give they're just going to deny it. Um, you know that's true now something else that comes up as we go through the episodes and what others have brought up is. The racist aspects of what Graham Hancock does now I'm not here to say that Graham Hancock is a racist personally I don't think he is you know that's that's probably stretching that too far but the ideas he talks about are very racist. A lot of this stuff comes from the Nineteenth century. You've seen it through eric fun dinahkin again. Ah Graham Hancock is the heir apparent to Eric Vo dinken he's the new Eric Vo dinke and these nineteenth century ideas are basically like hey when we go to these new places and we find a bunch of big pyramids. An ancient race unknown to the world must have made them because the people who are already here couldn't have made that because they're not as good as us. You know, obviously overtly racist now. It's tamped down a little you know for a modern audience but it's still. Obviously there so many of the episodes are like well the native savages were lived there in disarray. But then a great superhuman came from across the waves and organized them and gave them. 12:55.28 archpodnet Civilization and that's just man you know that's pretty racist pretty high on the racist scale I mean come on man you know, but to deny that and just go. Hey. Yeah, it was the local people who always lived here who made this stuff it denies the whole thing right? It destroys the entire setup it. It. It destroys the entire idea that there's a super civilization that spread out so they have to keep see they're trapped, they're trapped. In in the idea and they have to hold on with the racism and everything because without it. They're lost. Now even though that sounds pretty bad. Hand. It is I'm going to throw good old Graham Hancock a little bit of a bone right here here's a few things that the show does well ok here's here's a few things that. That I think it is successful in so first the 30 minute setup of each episode being 30 minutes I think that's great I think an hour would have been way too long and because of that I think the show moves you know I think it keeps its energy. 14:17.15 archpodnet Ah, as the as you go onward so you don't get bored. You know you move along. it's it's paced well um I think the overall production values are really good. The visuals are great. They use ah drone flyovers on some of these sites and they do make the archeology sites themselves look really good. So got to give them that and I will say even though Graham Hancock has been full of it for over 30 years the dude is a good narrator. He is a dynamic narrator. He really is yeah give credit where credit is due I will also say. The soundtrack you guys I love the soundtrack the soundtrack is super overwrot and that's great. It means like whenever Graham makes a point right? He'll be like and that's why the egyptian pyramids are there then and no. And and you know I want that to happen when I talk about something so anyway, you guys there I was in the maya jungle and no no and ah bomb boom right? I think it I think it works I think it works. I think that his focus on the ice age even though everything he says about it is like silly. It is super hard to make the ice age romantic and cool and I think he does it I mean he makes the younger driest sound cool. that's that's hard 15:48.30 archpodnet Younger dries I mean that sounds like the most boring thing in archeology and he makes it seem like something you want to hear about um he does a good job on focusing on certain things of the archeological past that aren't necessarily like the shiniest stuff. You know, just like some of the sites. He talks about are just kind of normal. You know they're not super huge so that can be hard to do. He does that? um and he does do some really good titles. You know, like ah episode 2 is called survivor in a time of. Chaos hey I'll watch survivor in a time of chaos right? and I will also say in in talking about the good I'll also check this out I'm gonna give them another bone and say that some of the critiques. On archeologists are land a little bit I do think that some archeologists can be aloof can be a little patronizing. You know, um, can be cut off from the general public not nearly to the degree that. Graham Hancock says but that is something that we could definitely improve our public outreach is sometimes really lacking. So ah, that's a note that we can take ah I also notice that I do think that some. 17:14.30 archpodnet In archeology have overreacted a little bit to this show not to the content and stuff because it is all just stupid right? But I think when we say things like don't watch it or um, make sure to turn it off or yeah this this kind of thing when. When we immediately say you can't watch this show. Um, what do you Think's going to happen. You know if you if you turn to me and you go hey can Killa whatever you do don't look over there I'm going to look over there. You know and if you talk about oh I would just never watch ah ancient apocalypse. Oh well, you know? ok ah to me personally should you watch ancient apocalypse should you not watch ancient apocalypse I don't care you know if you watch ancient apocalypse that's okay, it doesn't. Make you an ogre it. It. It is completely full of fallacies and stuff. But you know I watched it I watched the whole thing you guys. So I could bring you this show and I'm not here to tell you like oh look I could watch it because I mean I have a ph d in archeology and it protected me but the rest of you. I'm sorry you will not be protected right? I'm not here to say that. So um I do want to make sure that we as archeologists I think we add a little bit of of wood to the flame. You know if we're like oh don't watch it. Um, hey watch it. Don't watch it. Yeah. 18:51.70 archpodnet Watch half of it when we come back? What to do with Graham the total pseudo Archeologist Hancock and his show ancient apocalypse.