Interested in a scholarly response to Ancient Apocalypse Season 2 on Netflix with Graham Hancock and Keanu Reeves? We've got you covered here. With Professor John Hoopes (University of Kansas), we discuss the #realarchaeology of the Americas with a focus on topics we expect Graham Hancock to cover in season 2. Prebunking not debunking
Thanks so much to Dr Hoopes for the interview, lecture slides, and bibliography. Thanks to Jonida Martini for editing and graphic design.
Chapters
0:01:16 John's background and goals of this conversation
0:05:42 Peoples in Ice Age Americas. Pre-Clovis, Clovis, and more
0:24:34 Early exploration and ideas about archaeology in the Americas, and why it matters
0:37:49 Percy Fawcett in South America: Machu Picchu, Cusco, Tiwanaku, and more
0:53:20 Modern research in the Americas: on-the-ground surveys, aerial photos, and LIDAR
1:04:56 Astroarchaeology and astronomical alignments
1:06:07 Interdisciplinary approaches and public outreach https://www.real-archaeology.com
1:11:20 Archaeoastronomy, astrononomical alignments, and the Maya calendar
1:18:45 "Lost cities" of the Upanto Valley, Ecuador
1:24:15 Landscape modification and agriculture in the Amazon and South America
1:37:47 Community archaeology and descendant communities in the Americas
1:43:29 John and colleague's research in the Caribbean and Costa Rica
1:52:40 The Big Conclusion
Mini-Bibliography
Beach, Timothy, Sheryl Luzzadder-Beach, Duncan Cook, and Billie Lee Turner
2019 Ancient Maya wetland fields revealed under tropical forest canopy from laser scanning and multiproxy evidence. PNAS 116 (43) 21469-21477. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1910553116
Canuto, Marcello A., et al.
2018 Ancient lowland Maya complexity as revealed by airborne laser scanning of northern Guatemala. Science 361(6409).
Fisher, Christopher T.
2022 Large-scale early urban settlements in Amazonia. Nature 606. https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-022-01367-x.
Fisher, Christopher T., et al.
2016 Identifying Ancient Settlement Patterns through LiDAR in the Mosquitia Region of Honduras. PLOS ONE
Hansen, Richard D., Morales-Aguilar, C., Thompson, J., Ensley, R., Hernández, E., Schreiner, T., Suyuc-Ley, E. and Martínez, G.
2023 LiDAR analyses in the contiguous Mirador-Calakmul Karst Basin, Guatemala: an introduction to new perspectives on regional early Maya socioeconomic and political organization. Ancient Mesoamerica, 34(3)
Heckenberger Michael J, et al.
2008 Pre-Columbian Urbanism, Anthropogenic Landscapes, and the Future of the Amazon. Science 321
Heckenberger, Michael, and Eduardo Góes Neves
2009 Amazonian Archaeology. Annual Review of Anthropology 38:1
Hernández, M., et al.
2021 Origins and spread of formal ceremonial complexes in the Olmec and Maya regions revealed by airborne lidar. Nature Human Behaviour 5(11)
Inomata, T., Triadan, D., et al. 2020. Monumental architecture at Aguada Fénix and the rise of Maya civilization. Nature 582(7813)
Iriarte, J., Ziegler, M.J., Outram, A.K., Robinson, M., Roberts, P., Aceituno, F.J., Morcote-Ríos, G. and Keesey, T.M.
2022 Ice Age megafauna rock art in the Colombian Amazon? Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society 377(1849)
Morcote-Ríos, G., et al.
2021 Colonisation and early peopling of the Colombian Amazon during the Late Pleistocene and the Early Holocene: new evidence from La Serranía La Lindosa. Quaternary International 578
Neves, Eduardo G. and Heckenberger, Michael J.
2019 The call of the wild: Rethinking food production in ancient Amazonia. Annual Review of Anthropology 48(1)
Prümers, H., Betancourt, C.J., Iriarte, J., Robinson, M. and Schaich, M.
2022 Lidar reveals pre-Hispanic low-density urbanism in the Bolivian Amazon. Nature, 606(7913)
Roosevelt, Anna C.
2013 The Amazon and the Anthropocene: 13,000 years of human influence in a tropical rainforest. Anthropocene, 4
Roosevelt, Anna C., et al.
1996 Paleoindian cave dwellers in the Amazon: the peopling of the Americas. Science 272(5260)
Rostain, Stephen, et al.
2024 Two thousand years of garden urbanism in the Upper Amazon. Science 383
Šprajc, Ivan
2023 Equinoctial Sun and astronomical alignments in Mesoamerican architecture: Fiction and fact. Ancient Mesoamerica 34(2)
Šprajc, Ivan, Inomata, T. and Aveni, A.F.
2023 Origins of Mesoamerican astronomy and calendar: Evidence from the Olmec and Maya regions. Science Advances, 9(1)