#277: Reflections on Graham Hancock: Adventures in “Pseudo-Science”

Abstract:

This essay critically examines Graham Hancock’s work as a case study in the tension between interdisciplinary curiosity and rigorous scholarship. It explores how Hancock’s alternative historical theories, often framed as “pseudo-science,” attract popular fascination while diverging from evidence-based research. The discussion highlights the appeal of speculative narratives and their ability to challenge conventional academic boundaries, yet warns of the risks of prioritizing sensationalism over empirical rigor. By analyzing Hancock’s methods and claims, the essay emphasizes the necessity of critical thinking, methodological discipline, and adherence to verifiable evidence in historical and archaeological inquiry.

Table of Contents ↴

1. Preamble

As a Historian and Political Theorist, I have always been interested in the question of Atlantis, of alternative political ideas, of challenges to the status quo knowledge. This is what is exciting about all branches of science and academia: The quest for new ideas, or new interpretations of old ideas, and the constant refining and occasional revising of what we already know.

The most exciting parts of academia, to me, are those areas that are deeply interdisciplinary. This is where the fun starts. This is also, however, where danger lies.

No one academic or scientist can know everything. But at least you are supposed to be rooted in your field, and you have good domain knowledge in your own discipline, some sense of disciplinary boundaries, and some inkling of lies beyond in other fields. If you are by nature interdisciplinary, this becomes a bit muddled. There are moments when it is not as clear as you’d wish it to be to say what your academic home is. But the strength of such an interdisciplinary location is the ability to navigate different academic dialects, so to say. The same major theorists that unite different areas, that are read in different disciplines, will speak different things to different audiences. Is Bruno Latour important to sociology, to philosophy, to political science, to public policy, to anthropology, to philosophy, to history, or to cultural studies? Probably all of the above. All these different disciplines have their strengths and their weaknesses; they can be myopic in some ways and revealing in others.

A basic rule of thumb is the following: Historians need written sources. What we call “history” is thus oftentimes deeply reliant on what has been written down. If we do not have written sources, historians may look to other disciplines. Archaeology looks at material remains, Anthropology looks at patterns of human behavior, with an emphasis on the past. Sociologists try to make sense of social structures and behaviors, political science investigates structures of law, government and power, and cultural studies looks at wider cultural patterns throughout history and now. Philosophy is the “unadulterated” study of thought and wisdom, but all of these disciplines are somewhat related to philosophy; some of them are considered “social sciences”, especially with a claim towards being able to mathematically model and predict reality; while some of them are more within the realm of the humanities, which focus on analyzing ideas without necessarily requiring positivist approaches. These borders, however, are constantly in flux, and the more you are dedicated to interdisciplinarity, the more the relationships between these different disciplines will appear.

What unites all these disciplines is the quest for truth, for demonstrable reality. You may have your hypotheses, you may have your hunches and presuppositions and ideas and anecdotes, but you will have to prove them, and prove them consistently. If you make predictions, they should be repeatable. If you find extraordinary evidence, you need extraordinary proof. True paradigm shifts are rare.

Most importantly, science and academia are based on cooperation, on peer review, on constant and persistent and oftentimes ruthless critique. You will have to defend your ideas. You will have to tolerate disagreement. You will have to revise your ideas when they have been proven wrong, in whole or in part. You will have to defend your methodology, your teaching style, your writing, everything.

You will have to leave your ego at the door.

Science and academia have never been the domain of the one individual genius. Everything – and everyone – builds on someone else’s work. You will not make the big romantic mind-bending breakthrough. If it appears that you do, this may appear so mostly to those from fields other than yours – the experts in your field may well have had similar ideas. Yes, there are the Copernicus’ and Newtons and Einsteins and Darwins, but their work has just as well been built on other people’s work – if not before, then after. Sometimes, two people were working on the same idea at the same time (famously, Leibnitz and Newton, as well as Darwin and Wallace). This is because of the fact that academia and science are group activities. These theories would have been useless without experimental confirmation. Sometimes, such confirmation can come much later. Science is an orchestra, not a solo act.

2. Nice Introduction, But Nothing New If You Know Your Antiquities

I’ll say this. Graham Hancock‘s Netflix series Ancient Apocalypse is fun. It is like a modern Indiana Jones adventure, without the violence. If you are not quite familiar with all the sites visited, it will be educational. Not being an archaeologist, I have not been familiar with all the details, and was thankful for the initial exposure that allowed me to dig in deeper.

However, Ancient Apocalypse does not expose you to sites unknown to Archaeology. Experts have known about the various locations for a while.

Hancock, to his credit, does let experts speak, not without putting his own spin on things. This is certainly legitimate — he makes clear, abundantly clear, what he thinks of “establishment” archaeology and anthropology.

Some of his questions are good, so are some of his observations. And yet, I may only say that because I am not an expert on these materials. If I were, my judgement might be different.

Hancock makes two consistent mistakes:

He lets his own hypothesis guide the search, which opens him up to confirmation bias. He urgently wants to see his theses vindicated, wants to find proof for his main hypothesis. This may well lead him to over-interpret finds and select for experts that agree with him rather than provide criticism.
Personal incredulity is not proof. Every time he asks a question of the type “how could this possibly have been possible,” this opens the door to an “anything goes” approach. For example, scientists seem to know very well how the pyramids were built by now. Just because it is hard to believe that people back then could have done it with the tools at their disposal does not make it impossible.

In his defense, it is clear that he is not a scientist, and he does not pretend to be. He is an author and claims the title of journalist, and I would see this as acceptable.

3. Premise: Catastrophism Destroyed an Advanced Civilization

Graham Hancock’s basic premise seems to be this: The history of civilization is much longer than we assume. Before written history, before the invention of writing – which is typically associated with the rise of civilization together with the rise of farming and cities – there have been earlier human civilizations, or at least one advanced civilization. They have been destroyed by a global cataclysm, a catastrophe of unbelievable dimensions. Post cataclysm, the survivors built monuments warning about a possible return of the catastrophe, and spreading the lost knowledge to a world in disarray. We can learn about this pre-cataclysmic world from some of our the impressive archaeological remains, especially if they reveal global patterns that should not be global. We can also learn about this through the oral histories of peoples around the world. We could learn about all of this much better and much quicker if we opened our minds to such possibilities and were not stuck in the thought patterns governing disciplines such as history, archaeology and anthropology.

About the cataclysm, Hancock has been following developments in science rather closely, having changed his mind about what it could have been. Right now, his hypothesis is that during a period in history called the “Younger Dryas”, ranging from around 10,900 BC to 9,700 BC., a global catastrophe occurred, for which multiple causes are proposed. In Ancient Apocalypse, Hancock follows the Younger Dryas impact hypothesis, which discusses the possibility that meteors impacted the Earth surface when it passed through the so-called Taurid meteor stream. This hypothesis is scientifically not widely supported, but still under investigation.

The world at the time of the proposed cataclysm was much different. The Sahara Desert may have been green. In Plato’s Critias dialogue, Atlantis (which probably was made up by Plato, but let’s just go with it) was destroyed around the time of the end of the Younger Dryas, 9000 years before his lifetime. Göbekli Tepe and Karahan Tepe were built post-Dryas. Hancock also follows the Orion Correlation Theory, according to which the Pyramids of Giza and the Sphinx are much older than normally thought and were built, you guessed it, during the time frame in question.

Now, here is where the confirmation bias bit comes in. Hancock, in order to find proof of the hypothesis he has chosen to explain the existence and destruction of an advanced civilization, proceeds to stretch timelines of known archaeological evidence to make his thesis fit.

4. What Does “Advanced Civilization” Mean?

We tend to underestimate ancient peoples. To find out that prehistoric peoples and their successors may have been much smarter and accomplished than we typically think is actually a charming idea – and in many ways, true. “Civilized” humans are in many ways only smart because of the technology they have been able to accumulate and can now utilize at abandon — which includes the technology of writing, and the practice of reading which is only possible because of that.

Since the invention of writing, and the extension of the ability to read to ever wider classes of people, our civilization has become smarter as a whole — yet individual people probably not. We have also, through protection against predators, and through modern medicine, sanitation and urbanism, been able to stop evolutionary pressures on humanity, allowing people to thankfully survive that would have died under more drastic circumstances of previous eras. We nowadays have to survive in a completely different world, with completely different challenges, making us smart in some ways, but stupid in others. Most of us who may be well versed in utilizing computers would be hard pressed to build a fire or shelter in the wilderness. Many of us cannot even imaging how the pyramids were built by people with much less technology because our own inventiveness is limited to the use of advanced machinery.

What does it mean to be “advanced”? Hancock talks about an advanced civilization, and gets confused sometimes when asked what that means. Basically, he means a people with advanced seafaring and navigation skills that was able to build a global civilization including massive cities, and which may have inspired later civilizations post-cataclysm. We see their “fingerprints” in the great architectural works of early antiquity.

We are thus asked by Hancock to believe that survivors from an alleged advanced civilization which did survive an ancient apocalypse taught cultures around the world the following:

build Pyramids
invent agriculture
tell stories about a great flood
tell stories about a culture hero emerging from the oceans

That seems to be it.

It is an interesting thesis which certainly is thought-provoking. I enjoyed watching his television shows, and learned a lot. I also find the continuing debates on YouTube fascinating. But do I believe all this? Not really. I try to keep an open mind, but Hancock’s combination of confirmation bias and personal incredulity, plus his very selective reading of the scientific evidence, keeps me skeptical.

Furthermore, the insistence on the importance of drug use, especially of Ayahuasca, is not helping his thesis. Anyway. So, what are some of the main points of contention?

5. Sites in Ancient Apocalypse

Let us look at the sites and ideas presented in the show. I am ignoring the books, because the show is supposed to be the more up to date version, and I cannot be bothered, frankly. Sorry. I don’t feel I need to read the books because Hancock is ever present on YouTube these days aside from Netflix.

Global Flood. Are there indeed global flood myths? There are indeed a few, but not as many as Hancock proposes. Some stories are versions of existing older stories. The Biblical flood may echo older flood stories, as we now know. The Atlantis story may well have been influenced by this, but more likely by the sinking of Thêra (Santorini), and of Helike. Some Native American flood stories may also be the result of syncretic influences by Christianity on older native religions. Cultures mix. They cross-pollinate. It is more complicated than Hancock lets on.
Gunung Padang? No pyramid. Extinct volcano with paleolithic site long known to archaeologists. Needs more evidence.
Cholula? Pyramid, yes, but also not unknown, with a clear timeline. I could be convinced it is older than often assumed. I can also be made to believe Egyptian pyramids could be older. But as old as Hancock wants them to be? Not sure. Also, the pyramids by the different North- and Mesoamerican pyramids are all distinct in style, and differ also greatly from those in Egypt, Sudan, and whatever Gunung Padang is. The step pyramids of the Mayans, for instance, may only look similar to the current Egyptian pyramids which today seem to have steps as well because the marble and cold cladding was removed by later civilizations as construction material for other buildings. Before modern construction materials were discovered, if human beings wanted to build something tall, making something with a large footprint that gets smaller on the top is a logical design choice, if not the only one. That different civilizations throughout the planet (and, by the way, not all of them!) have built some form of pyramidal structures should not be surprising. It’s the easiest way to build something akin to a skyscraper prior to the invention of combining steel and concrete.
Malta temples: Cool temples. The Sirius connection seems contrived. The grooves in the rock are interesting. None of that is new.
Bimini Road: Oh please. He just throws a reference to Atlantis in there to make this seem like more than it is. I am not a geologist, but it seems that this could be natural, or some other older structure. No way to date this site.
Göbekli and Karahan Tepe etc: Archaeologists by now have understood that gatherer/hunter civilizations can indeed have built this. No evidence for agriculture apparently, and no pyramids, for sure – so how does this fit in the picture? The glyphs are interesting, and the scientist who proposed that kind of interpretation (which is cited, without good sourcing, by Hancock) may have a point. But the idea of a time capsule? That sounds far-fetched. If you want to warn people for all of eternity, how could you count on this being dug up? I was thankful though to the program for introducing a wider audience to these sites.
Clovis: Thank you for showing how Clovis first was always nonsense. Just because you find something old, you cannot assume there is nothing older. The entire dating for the Americas is clearly based on colonialist narratives, and we do indeed know more now. Hancock is not wrong that Clovis is still taught too much. This “bycatch” of his thesis was a much needed confirmation.
I also appreciate the validation of myth in general. My expertise lies in cultural studies, history and political theory. Culture-wise, I am a Jungian. I believe myths are meaningful, that they may have encoded reality, and that oral tradition can be just as reliable as written one. Indigenous histories clearly say that the Americas have been populated for more than 40000 years, and I tend to believe this. The Bering Strait may represent the latest arrival possibility, but by now we have clear evidence and indications that the “peopling” of the Americas happened from different origins, and that certainly, the human (Homo sapiens sapiens) presence of the Americas predates that in most of Europe (with the exception of Homo sapiens neanderthalensis).
Wait, is the ancient civilization he is talking about … Neanderthals? Why not, but where is the proof?
Poverty Point and Serpent Mound: interesting sites, but the pointing of different viewpoints to certain solar and stellar constellations seems contrived. Who knows.
Also, I am unclear on the serpent imagery in myth and stone. Are serpents comets, do they point to comets, are they monsters, or are they Quetzalcoatl? These would all be different phenomena. That inconsistency makes no sense. Here I would go to Jungian archetypes, which clearly show that snakes are encoded in our instincts as dangerous – which they would have been for us apes. I could even go a step further and say we may have a mammalian memory when our little mammalian non-homo ancestors were scared shitless scuttling away from dinosaurs. Maybe that’s where all the dragon stories are coming from. Or maybe reptiles are so different that our imagination takes flight. And dragons are cool. But comets looking like serpents? That is … bold.
Derinkuyu as a comet shelter? Seriously? Also, digging through soft rock with axes does not need any ancient civilization to inspire such behavior.
Channeled Scablands: Ask a multitude of geologists and wait for an emerging consensus.
Younger Dryas impact hypothesis: Whatever happened may not have been as fast as alleged, and the timeline seems a bit unclear. It seems Hancock takes the Younger Dryas date and then makes everything fit by suggesting to fudge currently established timelines. Not cool.

This list could be expanded, but I’ll leave it at this. You can see, some of what Hancock highlights may be worthwhile, but the more extreme conclusions seem … well, extreme.

6. Conclusions I: No Arguments Against the Person, Please, but at the Subject Matter

Now, I am not sure what to think. I find Ancient Aliens ridiculous, and Däniken’s conclusions are is downright offensive sometimes. I love the Stargate franchise – but that is clearly marked as fiction. I believe in Pyramids being landing platforms for Goa’uld motherships (in fiction) over any of the Pyramidiocy on display on the History Channels and like ilk. I reject all the anthroposophy nonsense, and the old white supremacist Atlantis / Aryan connection.

Is Hancock in that camp? I cannot see it. Again, I have not read the books, I have looked at the Ancient Apocalypse series and watched some interviews where he himself puts some distance between his theories now compared to earlier. He now clearly states that he does not see the original civilization as white, and I believe him. His current work expands the timeline for the Americas, gives indigenous peoples a voice, and he insists that his original civilization was certainly not Aryan. I have great difficulty seeing him as racist — he also clearly is in a loving relationship with his non-white wife. I do not agree with all of Hancock’s conclusions or his methods, but I do not believe in guilt by association. He talks about Atlantis, the Nazis did so, but that does not make him a Nazi — such smears are not even argumenta ad hominem, they are shameful calculated insults.

Some of what Hancock has dug up metaphorically has been dug up for real by archeologists, but it has been badly communicated if at all. Many things were new to me, many however weren’t. Hancock does not always give full credit. He could have at least mentioned Charles C. Mann’s excellent book 1491, which is written for a general audience and in which he tells the story of how much we don’t know about American prehistory, and Mann already collates the existing research revealing the ancient human population density of the Amazon, and the complex migration patterns leading to the Americas.

Archeologists may need to learn how to work with, not against Hancock. He clearly has his ideas, and he needs help. In return, real scientists could enter a dialog about what outdated ideas are still haunting the academy and public education (where old textbooks and old professors and teachers seemingly never die!), and how to channel the search for wonder and mystery onto a path that is more in alignment with reality.

However, Hancock’s personality and history of insults to the academic professions (and to individual scientists) may well make such a more conciliatory approach rather difficult. Also, how Hancock frames academic and scientific research does not seem very open minded. He appears to gain credit from the anti-science and anti-academia camp by constantly bashing individual scientists who disagree with him. He seems to prefer to “everyman” showmasters like Joe Rogan rather than to talk with experts who actually know better.

If we care about the subject matter, we need to focus on that rather than on discrediting people for disagreeing with us. My disagreement here is not with Hancock as a person, but how he communicates, and how he systematically avoids the issue of his own bias and deflects any criticism by falsely demonizing science and academia as elitist. On the contrary, science and academia are the least elitist enterprises: You actually have to prove your worth by focusing on evidence, and you can learn the methods of how to do so if you only dedicate yourself. Science is not a secret priesthood for the initiates. It is a very public enterprise. The kind of knowledge that Hancock sometimes refers to, however, seems obscurantist by design and by leaving out the actual scientific answers if they disagree with Hancock’s confirmation bias.

We need to just talk with each other, listen to each other, and be kind to the person but no holds barred on the topic of our inquiry.

7. Conclusions II: Pseudo-Science, or: The Atlantis in Our Minds

Now, is this science? Is this pseudo-science?

It probably is the latter. Why? Science, as I mentioned above, is an orchestra, not a solo act. I understand that Hancock wants to push science in his direction, or at least wants it to answer the questions he asks so urgently. Thus you could interpret what he is doing at least proto-scientific. If Graham Hancock is the gateway drug to science, then he has done us all a service. But, again, his tendency to let his conclusions guide his inquiry pushes him into confirmation bias.

We need evidence first. Theory may guide the search for evidence, but it cannot replace it.

As to Atlantis: There is no Atlantis. Period. Plato made it up to illustrate a political point. Anyone who says otherwise will have to bring more evidence than what Hancock and others have accumulated so far.

Human beings have a great ability to create fiction. We tend to think this has not always been so, and that whatever we find in older stories must be reflective of reality. But imagination has always been humanity’s greatest strength. We look at the stars and see images and patterns that simply are not there other than in our minds. This is what we do.

Also, sometimes the building material dictates how to utilize it. Some parallel forms around the world can just be the result of a similar building objective with similar building materials leading to similar conclusions about how to use it. It is called Parallel Evolution, and it works on nature just as much as on culture. Similar or equal patterns do not necessarily mean a shared origin; they can just as much mean that different people found the same solution to a similar challenge.

8. Conclusions III: The Sense of Wonder

Nevertheless.

We need inspiration. We need what Richard Dawkins calls an “Appetite for Wonder.” We should also always be open-minded, but not so much that our brains fall out. Maybe Hancock can be right on some occasions. He certainly is curious, and willing to work with experts. Maybe both sides need to be a bit nicer to each other and recognize opportunity where there oftentimes is only antagonism.

Do watch Ancient Apocalypse. Watch Indiana Jones. Watch Stargate. For heaven’s sake, watch Ancient Aliens if it tickles your fancy.

Then look at the real science. It’s much more exciting.

1 thought on “#277: Reflections on Graham Hancock: Adventures in “Pseudo-Science””

#317: Between Enlightenment and Obscurity: Restoring Science’s Democratic Promise – Erratic Attempts October 13, 202510:45 pm

[…] this is why people are so interested in what people like Graham Hancock have to say, why so-called alternative medicine and astrology and what is called pseudoscience […]

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