Prebunking Graham Hancock's Ancient Apocalypse Season 2 in the Americas with Prof John Hoopes

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
1:11:20 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

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.

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)

[FlintDibble]

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[Fradormat]

I took a class with Professor Hoopes at KU and that one course has shaped the way I look at history and archaeology (and pseudo-achaeology). I have tons of respect for him. He always makes good points and backs them up with evidence. And changes his views when justified.

[LuvLikeTruck]

So in addition to Googledebunking we can now do GooglePrebunking?!? Heck yes!!!

[AuntyKsTarot]

As an Indigenous person the distinction between recording and discovery is appreciated and an anti racist view of how he does his work. Much respect.

[itsnot_stupid_ifitworks]

Hancock released a "fact check" of the debate this morning. He provided evidence of why you wouldn't find any evidence...because that makes sense.

[ryanculpeper]

This is going to sound a little odd, but I can't express how appreciative I am of you, Flint. I'm currently ABD, and the last few years working through language exams or quals left me exhausted and burnt out, second-guessing decisions, etc. Your enthusiasm for archaeology and pushing back on all of this pseudo-nonsense has genuinely affected me positively and made me realize again how lucky and privileged we are to do what we do. It's hard work, but it's worth it, and even though certain people denigrate our profession, what we're contributing matters. Thanks for bringing it back to perspective.

[Ilingoceros]

Well thank you. I just learned a whole raft of stuff here. My career has been in biology (fish & wildlife) and I know the kind of dread you feel with disappearing archeological sites, just like we as field biologists spend an awful lot of time carefully documenting the demise of one species after another of animals and plants. Once it's gone it's gone folks, don't squander what's left.

[pseudoname]

Hell yeah! You're a rock star as far as I'm concerned Dr. Dibble. More pro-intellectualism and critical thinking in the broader public discourse, especially in North America, USA. You'll always have this guy's support! 🤘🏼✊🏼

[nh]

I have to say it is really nice to see people standing up for actual facts, and backing up all their points with sources. I see so many people choosing the people who have “all the answers” because it’s more satisfying than hearing people rightly saying “we don’t know and we might never know, but here are the facts we have”

[ksumrz]

Clovis culture is what got me interested in archeology. When I was a kid, the idea that there used to be mammoths where I grew up and people hunted them with pointy sticks blew my mind. Thank you for covering this topic.

[elbek_phd]

Hello from Uzbekistan. I really enjoyed your debate with Hancock😄

[leandralocke]

I can't believe how utterly interesting, calming and refreshing I'm finding these conversations. I am quite politically interested, but those topics are always source for upset and worry. I have also always been interested in archaeology, but I never thought just listening to two people talking about it - even for hours - was going to be so pleasant. Maybe it's because I'm getting old and just need more of that intellectually stimulating but calming content 😁

[shingasa]

I love all the Hancock stans whining in the comments. Just watch the video and look at *actual* evidence. Not some guy going: „It LOOKS like it’s connected, therefore it HAS to be“

[woodsyshroomer]

Great show guys. 57 years old and wish i'd spent the last 40 years paying more attention. Thanks to a number of things over the years, i've always had a lot of interest. Time Team was a great show we had in Britain, not sure how far it was viewed. Sadly show like Ancient Aliens know how to capture the public interest, while real archaeology is restricted to facts. Thankfully the internet has provided a great resource for people like me who are too old to go to Uni, but like to learn. I noticed a new "Fact Checking Dibble" video has popped up on the Grahham Hancock Official Channel, i won't be watching. Wishing you all the best for the future.

[jonni]

my daughter is an english teacher she uses prebunking but she calls it scaffolding, i think its brilliant, so much more effective that chasing someone who is gish-galloping

[jmc]

Thank you, Flint Dibble, for conducting this insightful interview with Professor John Hoopes. I'm not usually someone who spends more than 10 minutes on YouTube, but I watched the entire interview—it was very captivating! I truly appreciate what Dr. Hoopes has been doing, especially given his decades of dedication to these topics. This conversation has sparked a strong interest in further exploring the incredible enigmas of Puerto Rico, where I live, and the Antilles. I look forward to more interviews like this in the future!

[nick-bovee-gazett]

Fascinating and insightful. I hope more people see this and start to recognize the difference between infotainment and genuine research and scholarship.

[markberman]

I've pretended to be an archeologist a bunch of times, comes with the ground I've covered, so, as a fully qualified pretend Archeologist I'd like to add that a charlatan who will not look 2 millimeters below the surface is as annoying as a burr in your boot.
I watched all of Hancocks first series, dedicated contrarians can be entertaining as well as seeing some sights, but you could easily rename his series "finding hitler" and it wouldn't matter. He presents absolutely nothing to chew on, nothing at all.
As a final note; with all our technology I find it irritating that you cannot reach into your television and slap sense into a one note mule.

[travisfischer]

The way that the modern geography of Newark OH is influenced by decisions made by people thousands of years ago is fascinating.

[timboslice]

Yeah i pointed out on the Hancock fact check video that the 3 million shipwrecks are estimates based on formations that always end up being shipwrecks. Of those 3 million mapped locations, theyve only investigated a fraction of them. In one of hancocks videos he was talking about underwater Archaeology only going after shipwrecks. Imagine ignoring the obvious target and deciding to just go digging around on the continental shelf without a target. Graham seems to think archaeology has limitless resources to just go digging around if they come up empty 500 times he wouldn’t care about the wasted resources, the damage to the the environment, and wouldn’t care what the people who lost money think about the next dive. If archeologists have a target and somehow get the funds to do a dive, theyre going to look for something with a high chance of success. Those mapped shipwrecks all but guarantee that success. And yes of the thousands of shipwrecks that have been explored, none confirm Graham’s theory.