Frauds, Myths, and Mysteries: Science and Pseudoscience in Archaeology (Paperback) by Kenneth L Feder

from Snukes

This book often reads more like an irritated man's soapbox than a scientific discussion.

from neurodrew

debunks archeological mysteries and claims. The destruction of Atlantis myths and the information on the Indian Moundbuilders in the US were particularly interesting, but his prose was noticeably inexpert.

from Devil_llama

The author discusses various hypotheses in the field of archaeolgy, and explains what the evidence suggests. Overall a very good book, but the author has the annoying, and all too common, habit of starting off his explanation of evidence against an idea by saying it is racist. This may be true, b...

from Razinha

Michael Shermer mentioned this book in his Why People Believe Weird Things, and I was curious of enough to read it. One of the few reasons Shermer gave at the end of his book, the only one that made any sense to me, was “because they want to”. Feder says of the Piltdown hoax: “Many accepted the P...

from jen.e.moore

We were a little at cross-purposes, the author and I - he's interested in proving that these beliefs are silly, and I'm interested in why people believe these things in the first place. It was a decent introduction to some of the weirdnesses of popularized pseudo-archaeology, but not quite what I...