Why “Bad Archaeology”?
This is one of the reasons we have settled on the term ‘Bad Archaeology’ to describe their efforts: it is almost the reverse of what real archaeologists do and think and, at the same time, stands in defiant opposition to the hard work of the mainstream. Earlier attempts to characterise this particular branch of human enterprise led to the term Fringe Archaeology, as its practitioners are on the very edge of the discipline, failing to interact with it in any meaningful way. The term Cult Archaeology is also apt, as the readership of these books forms a curiously reverent community for whom the writer of choice is venerated as an infallible authority, bravely ignoring hidebound academic critics. ‘Pseudoarchaeology’ also comes to mind, as these writers claim to be pushing the frontiers of archaeology, opening up new ways of looking at the past in exactly the same way as pseudoscientists believe that they are producing exciting new insights into science. In the end, though, we settled for
