Archaeological Fantasies and Hoaxes

“My professor Gordon Willey at Harvard disliked Raiders of the Lost Ark intensely. The reason being that he was of that generation. He was actually an archeologist in the 30s, 40s, and 50s, and so for him, it was not okay to be caricatured in this way. The film did not show what archaeologists did. They did not go out and find prized artifacts and take them and run away. That is looting, not archaeology.”

Well, I don't know if all archeologists and museum directors subscribed to that view until quite recently. For example Russia is still holding on to the famous "Priam's Treasure" looted from Berlin in 1945 (which in turn was looted from the Tory dig by Schliemann) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priam%27s_Treasure#The_treasur.... Many other more recent examples can be given, for more information you can start with this Guardian article: https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2015/jun/29/museums-loot...

Great article. I visited Cahokia just a few months after visiting pyramids in Belize and Guatemala and commented on how some of the artifacts looked similar and the government workers in the visitor center were very adamant about saying that the Cahokians we unrelated to any known tribes.

I learned later that if linage was proved there are laws that would allow the decedents to claim rights to sacred lands.

I thought that it would be an interesting read about misconceptions in archeology, but turned out to be white shaming.