Here’s an interesting story about an amateur researcher (an architect by profession) who suggested in a recent article that there may be ruins of a famous ancient Mayan city … in Georgia (the one famous for peaches and iced tea). Turns out an archaeologist he quoted in his book actually read his material and was pretty irked.
I’d love to see more of this (“unintentional peer review”). Other than Dan Brown in the wake of the DaVinci Code, it’s rare that scholars read any of this sort of amateur research. If they did, more of these sorts of enthusiasts would get called out. Most of the time they’d get embarrassed, but I believe that every once in a while they might get some help thinking differently about a topic (presuming the data are real). It’s even more interesting since the offended archaeologist had to read it in the Examiner (the online newspaper that sounds like the Onion at times but isn’t as funny).
Oh man, so people were mad at the Archeologist for doing his due diligence shall we say in regards to someone quoting him? Okayyyyyyy. And commentators claim that Williams is offending the public at large by being thorough? I feel like I am living in Wonderland sometimes.
Another amusing note on the Yahoo article mentioned that Thorton was also hired to do historical research on local tribes? I mean I know he says he claims to come from Georgia Creek Indians but isn’t that a job for an ARCHEOLOGIST???? Some irony there.
[“Good Grief!” – Charlie Brown]
The archaeologist objected to using his material in defense of an idea he thought was ludicrous.
I’d really like to see a post on the Michael Tellinger Giant footprint material that’s appearing oin Facebook and Blogs. Preferably one that put it in an industrial size shredder!
send it to me via email