Pseudoarchaeology in Australia

Australia is not alone, we have Welsh Indians, Phoenicians in New
England, Scandanavians marching thousands of miles to leave a badly
grammatical stone in the midst of 19th Century Scandanavian
settlements. The Maya and Aztecs seem to have had their share with
Quezecoatal and those stone heads.

Pseudoarchaeology says Vikings came to Australia
Anna Salleh
ABC Science Online


Wednesday, 29 August 2007

secret visitor?
There are many stories about secret visitors landing on Australian
shores. But what's the evidence?

Many people believe Vikings, Phoenicians or Aztecs visited Australia
because archaeologists aren't good at marketing their version of the
past, argues one professional.

Sydney-based archaeologist Denis Gojak will talk about how researchers
can combat such 'pseudoarchaeology' at the Australian Archaeology
Conference in Sydney next month.

"There's a real passion for stories about the past," says Gojak.

"I think it's a failing in our profession that this need is being
fulfilled through these other means."

Gojak says many people who stumble across stone artefacts or
engravings that remind them of ancient civilisations think they are
evidence of arrivals in Australia before the Dutch and English.

"There are claims of everything from ancient Egyptians, which would be
about 2-3000 years ago, through to Romans, Vikings, Phoenicians and
South American civilisations like the Inca."

He says this "broad folk idea" of secret visitors tends to be based on
wildly speculative claims about isolated objects and "structures"
discovered in undocumented circumstances.

"Because they don't have any context, it's easy to make up their
backstory," says Gojak.

The Mahogany Ship

Stories tend to be passed from person to person, changing as they go,
says Gojak, giving the example of the mystery of the Mahogany Ship, a
wreck first seen on the Victorian coast in the 1870s.

"Its legend has grown phenomenally over the years," he says.

The ship was reportedly made of a red timber resembling mahogany,
suggesting an exotic timber from far away.

Gojak says over time, the ship's size grew, especially once it was
reported to have been buried under shifting sands and its exact
location lost.

There are no photographs and the last eyewitness report was around the
beginning of last century, he says.

Nevertheless in the 20th century an amateur historian argued the wreck
was of a Portuguese exploratory voyage some 200 or more years before
Captain James Cook's arrival.

Despite extensive and costly searches no remnants of the boat remain,
says Gojak.

He says since the rise in popularity of the idea that the Chinese
discovered the world in 1421 the Mahogany Ship has been reinterpreted
as a Chinese junk.

Pseudoarchaeology

Gojak says claims like those about the Mahogany Ship can be described
as pseudoarchaeology.

He says there is no doubt that maritime exploring nations like
Portugal and Spain were sailing around the Indian Ocean and the
Southern Pacific in the 16th and 17th centuries.


"It's not outside the realms of possibility at all that they may have
come to Australia," he says.

"But so far no one has presented any good evidence that they actually
did arrive."

For example, he says, there are no documents in Portuguese records
suggesting they bumped into a great southern land. The Dutch and
English, by contrast, were very proud of the fact.

He also says there are no evidence of relics, such as bottles or
pieces of ship equipment, you would expect to find if the Portuguese
had landed.

Gojak says most archaeologists prefer the simpler explanation, which
is also more consistent with other facts, that the Mahogany Ship is
the remains of a whaling boat.

He says other claimed evidence of secret visitors can also be
explained.

For example, an Egyptian statue found in Sydney's historic Rocks area
is more likely to be a souvenir from a visiting sailor, says Gojak.

He says putative ancient Greek axe heads have been explained as
naturally occurring rocks, an alleged pyramid has been explained as
agricultural terracing and a supposed Portuguese port was actually a
documented agricultural building from the 1840s.

In one case a park ranger caught someone engraving rocks with Egyptian
hieroglyphs, says Gojak, but unfortunately these reports are
downplayed by those who want to believe the Egyptians were early
visitors to Australia.

Better marketing of archaeology needed

Gojak says the success of pseudoarchaeology means archaeologists need
to do a better job at satisfying the public's desire for great stories
about the past.

"Archaeologists and historians can tell stories that are just as
interesting and exciting," he says.

"There's an obvious market there for us to better tell our version of
the past."

Gojak says archaeologists have an ethical duty to encourage a view
about the past that is founded on good evidence.

It is not that people who explore pseudoarchaeology are unintelligent,
says Gojak.

"Often they have quite a good education, they are observers, thinkers
and speculators," he says.

But they are just not good at critical evaluation of evidence.

"That's not just a problem in archaeology. It's a problem in all
facets of life."

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