I want to feel important
That’s how I felt when I first started watching Ancient Apocalypse on Netflix, unfortunately I wasn’t immediately aware that my elated feeling surreptitiously came at the expense of others.
In late 2022 Netflix dropped the hit docuseries “Ancient Apocalypse” hosted by notorious pseudoarchaeologist Graham Hancock. It rocketed to the top of the charts upon release, hitting the top 10 most viewed series in many countries. This series is fascinating for its content and even more for how it has been received.
The show claims that 12,800 years ago, there was an advanced global human civilization that was wiped out by an asteroid impact. The few survivors of this apocalypse traveled the world teaching subjects like astronomy and agriculture to the surviving hunter-gatherer population of the world. In the show Hancock travels to many well-known archaeological sites and consistently claims that they are all older than most scientists claim, seeming to find ways to date each site to the same age of 12,800 years old.
From the get go Hancock makes it very clear that real archaeologists view him as “enemy number one”. He claims that his work is disrupting the paradigm that most archaeologists follow and could uproot their very field of study. And in many ways he is right about this. Many professional archaeologists and lay people alike say his claims are completely bogus, some even describing it as “dangerous”. But do they go to the extreme lengths Hancock claims? Very unlikely.
Here we’ll get into the key points needed to understand Graham Hancock, his Netflix docuseries “Ancient Apocalypse” and how it can teach you about what conspiracy theories really are. Below I’ll cover the following:
- What makes Ancient Apocalypse so compelling?
- Where does it go wrong?
- What does it get right?
- Where do the critics go wrong?
- My final thoughts
What makes Ancient Apocalypse so compelling?
It panders to the “anti-expert” in us
Especially since the 2016 US election, there seems to be a growing vocal minority of the population who vehemently dismiss seemingly anything presented by an “expert”. This has further been exemplified by opinions on the Covid-19 pandemic. When people are feeling bad about themselves, undermining experts is a tool many people use to feel better about themselves, especially if they can point out where the “experts” are wrong. In reality this is a way of distracting oneself from their own insecurities. “Hey look over there at the experts screwing up, pay attention to them, and whatever you do, don’t look at me and my shortcomings”. It is one way to avoid victim mentality (victimizing yourself is also an unhealthy way to deal with insecurities), but unfortunately misses the mark completely and will ultimately make you feel worse in the long run.
It tells you that “you’ve been lied to”
And that the “authorities are covering up the truth”. Similar to the point above, people seem to feel good when they “realize” that they’ve been lied to because it lets them shift the blame for their problems to someone else. It lets them take the easy road and gives them a pass to play the victim, which can feel good to the lower-self. It is also for some reason deceptively easy to blindly believe someone when they say you’ve been lied to even if it is rationally obvious that that person is full of BS.
It makes you feel part of a tribe
When you “find out” that the authorities are “covering up the truth” it effectively creates a tribe, something humans are hard-wired for. We’re all in a way looking for our tribe because the whole world often feels too big for one person to handle. Hancock does a good job at subtly making you feel like you are part of his tribe for following him and his alternative view of history. And importantly he paints the mainstream archaeology community as “other”, a group that you don’t want to be a part of because they are closed-minded and aggressive. Fear of being “othered” is intrinsic to us all.
It gives you answers quickly
Traditional academic research is slowwwwww. In traditional archaeology, sites need to be discovered, meticulously excavated, studied in detail, cross-referenced with other sources, interpreted by many people, debated and questioned.
But to a viewer of Ancient Apocalypse, it appears that most of these steps are taken care of. Hancock has done most of the work for you and just presents you with the answers without any of the drudgery. “Me, who has done little work in this field, already knows more than a person who has spent the last 30 years studying it? I’m naturally gifted!! I feel amazing!”
Now this is the approach that most (more accurate) history documentaries take, but the fact that this one self righteously presents such a radically different view on history seemingly so easily is what makes it compelling to so many people. The problem is that it is 99% wrong.
Where does it go wrong?
Milo Rossi, also known as Miniminuteman on YouTube has given a very thorough, and entertaining treatment to Ancient Apocalypse which I highly recommend you check out. The first episode is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-iCIZQX9i1A&ab_channel=Miniminuteman
Many of the points he makes inspired this section (and whole article) but below I will give my interpretation as to what I think are the most important areas where the ideas in Ancient Apocalypse go wrong.
It goes WAY too far
The show can basically be summed up as this:
Man travels the world to well known archaeological sites and cherry-picks evidence from said sites and then stretches and interprets the evidence in an egregiously exaggerated – but seemingly rational – way to fit his preconceived view on history.
It is quite clear that Hancock has started his investigation with the theory, instead of creating the theory from the evidence, even though at first glance it doesn’t seem like that.
It assumes many ideas were only invented once
Hancock believes that his ancient civilization invented astronomy and agriculture, and the only reason why anyone today knows these subjects is because the survivors of the apocalypse traveled the world teaching them to the surviving hunter-gatherers.
Where do I even begin?
Let’s use our imaginations a bit shall we? How difficult is it to fathom, that two or more groups of people in completely different parts of the world who are able to see the night sky would look up and say “oh damn, that’s cool!” and then develop their own studies of it? And about agriculture, there have literally been 11 documented cases of agriculture being independently developed throughout history (https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/development-agriculture/). Believe it or not, some things are so interesting and important that they’re capable of being invented more than once, who knew?
Somehow, this ancient civilization learned astronomy and agriculture, on their own, but no other civilization was able to do so? Come on…
Assuming Hunter-Gatherer humans were incapable of building monolithic structures
If you haven’t read “The Dawn of Everything – A New History of Humanity” by David Graeber and David Wengrow, do yourself a favor and get on it. It was published recently – 2021 – with new research findings and one of the themes of the book is dispelling the myth that hunter-gatherer humans were nothing more than primitive humans who did nothing of “significance” with their lives when they weren’t looking for food. In fact, these people were just as much human as everyone alive today, and even though they didn’t base their lives on agriculture, they were still capable of creating monolithic structures among other “notable” achievements. Whether or not any of the structures highlighted in Ancient Apocalypse were indeed created 12,800 years ago as Hancock claims, it is still extremely likely that humans around that time were capable of similar engineering feats.
Claiming that Archaeologists are “covering up the evidence”
Much of the funding for Archaeology (and Science in general) is dependent on public awareness, trust and support. Archaeologists will often rely on tourism and publicity in order to get paid. Game-changing discoveries can be the greatest things to happen to archaeologists. If one found real evidence of an ancient advanced global civilization of the ice age do you really think they would cover that up? It would be one of the greatest discoveries in history! It would usher Archaeology into a new era of recognition, support and prosperity.
This is a point made well by Sarah E. Bond in this Hyperallercic article: https://hyperallergic.com/791381/why-archaeologists-are-fuming-over-netflixs-ancient-apocalypse-series/
It pushes this idea that Academia is a monolithic institution where everyone on the inside is covering up some truth
How many thousands of archaeologists are there around the world? Should we be led to believe that they are all working together to cover up what would be one of the most important discoveries in history?
Such questions can be asked about most conspiracies and are some of the easiest ways I can think of to show how bogus they really are. Archaeology is a global institution with hundreds of mostly independent research groups who have arguments and disagreements on the interpretation of their findings. To have complete compliance with the covering up of an ancient civilization within a global institution would be one of the most unprecedented things I can think of.
That’s the Bimini Road???
I could go into all the specific claims Hancock makes, but we’d be here all day. I’ll give my favorite here as an example. In episode 4 Hancock investigates a rock formation under the water and claims that it is an ancient road from the Ice Age.
The whole thing is maybe a few hundred meters long at most. It is known as the “Bimini Road”. Then later on in the episode he is investigating an ancient map known as the Piri Reis map, and is particularly interested in an island on the map, this one:
For context, this island is drawn to be off the coast of North America and looks to be at least 100 kilometers in length, potentially much larger. Hancock becomes particularly fixated on the mountainous looking region running along the middle of the island and then declares in the episode that it is the Bimini Road! Not only that, this is in fact the lost city of Atlantis.
Yes I am not making it up when I say that Hancock believes that the person who drew this map a few hundred years ago, included the lost city of Atlantis on their map – apparently a major city in a super advanced ancient global civilization – and they decided that the highlighting feature that should be drawn on the map is a road. Not a monument, or a church, or a statue or anything else that might be noteworthy, no, a fucking road. Milo Rossi explains this well in his breakdown of the show, but I am highlighting it here as my favorite bogus argument Hancock makes.
It turns out this is in fact a map of Puerto Rico with north pointing to the left. Who knew!
What does it get right?
Believe it or not, there are some things from Ancient Apocalypse that I agree with. I believe there is at least an aspect of truth to everything, and that applies here.
Rising sea levels has eroded our view of the past
One thing Hancock comments on in the series is how tragic it is that we have lost so much potential evidence about early humans due to sea levels rising at the end of the latest ice age. And he is absolutely right! Deciding that it washed away a global advanced civilization takes it a bit too far, but I still what he says here isn’t completely without merit.
Cautioning for the future
At the end of Ancient Apocalypse, Hancock issues a dire warning to our species about potential threats to our species, namely asteroid impacts and climate change. Again, he is completely correct on this one. Those two things are legitimate threats to our species and life on Earth that we absolutely should take seriously if we want to continue thriving for centuries and millennia to come. It is just unfortunate that he issues this warning so we don’t suffer the same fate as a civilization that never actually existed.
Suggesting the archaeologists are resistant to change…
…as are all humans for that matter. You’ll find resistance to change everywhere you look, no one is immune to this and in many cases it can be a good thing. Paradigm shifts are in general slow to occur. But, as mentioned above, novel discoveries can be an amazing thing for archaeologists as they can inject new life and interest into their field. The problem arises when Hancock takes the concept that people can be resistant to change and uses it as a weapon against mainstream academia to vilify and divide.
Question the norm
Question everything! That is one of the great lessons of life. Question everything you think you know, breakdown paradigms, build new ones, change the world. Just don’t be surprised if you get it wrong sometimes.
Don’t blindly follow authority
There are tons of examples throughout history where people blindly follow their leaders only for it to lead to more death and suffering (or ignorance). Absolute power corrupts absolutely as the saying goes. So yes, question the authorities, but you can take that too far. As with so many things it is a balancing act. Question them yes, but also learn from them, be inspired by them. At the same time, it is a good idea to learn how to filter out the bullshit you come across, especially within yourself.
What do the critics go wrong
Perhaps, in retaliation to Hancock’s steadfast approach, his critics are tempted (myself included) to swing just as hard in the other direction. But you lose the nuance if you do that. Critics of Hancock suggest that his theories stem from white supremacist ideologies. This has appeared to me to lack any further details or explanation. On one hand Hancock puts forward the idea that survivors of this ancient civilization (who’s race seems arbitrary to me but would have to be white to make this argument work) needed to travel the world to teach the surviving indigenous population skills like astronomy and agriculture. It wouldn’t be outrageous to claim that someone with racist tendencies would come up with such an idea. It also wouldn’t be outrageous to claim that race plays little role in this theory and it is primarily an attempt to appeal to anti-expert zealots.
Prejudice in this fashion is not explicitly stated in the show, and perhaps for good reason. It could be an attempt to subtly convert a few more self-centred xenophobes knowing that if explicit prejudiced language was used it wouldn’t be as effective. Similarly simply touting the phrase “white supremacist” is a reliable way to inflict controversy and divide a population and it is possible Hancock realizes this would be a step too far in pandering to his intended audience. But at the same time, and I could be wrong, it seems to me to also be used as an easy way for his critics to grab attention. If it is indeed true that Hancock’s aim is to indulge the “white saviour” narrative, then it is possible the critique I have portrayed here isn’t nearly serious enough, but in all honesty I don’t know. I do wish – for better or worse – this idea was explored and debated more in a less biased fashion, maybe then I wouldn’t have debated including this section in this article in the first place.
Final thoughts
On the surface level, Hancocks claim at an “alternative” view on history seems harmless, and if solely used for entertainment purposes can very well be. But the extent to which he hammers home the idea that mainstream academia is trying to silence him and have labeled him as “public enemy number 1” has potentially harmful connotations. No one is without their bias and prejudice, but attempting to delegitimize the entire field of archaeology – people who actually put in the leg work – with hand-wavy claims using old maps and stories passed down the millennia has trained Hancock’s followers to doubt authority whenever they please if it fits their narrative. Critics of the show claim it to be “dangerous” and this claim is true in the ideas it plants. Questioning authority can be a good thing, but using that idea to squash the competition and forcibly push your ideologies on a population have been used by some truly terrible people to do some truly terrible things. On the bright side, perhaps critics of Hancock will inspire some young aspiring archaeologists into putting in the leg work and adding to the rich body of knowledge on the history of humanity based on evidence, as opposed to mere conspiracy.
If you want a more accurate analysis of the history of humanity that fuses the best of the mainstream with Hancock’s it would go something like this:
The old notion that pre-agrarian human hunter-gatherers had little time for anything other than finding and eating food is inaccurate. These people were just as human as we all are today, however, due to rising sea levels and the erosion effect time has, most evidence of their lives are lost to us now. A technologically advanced global civilization of arbitrary complexity did NOT exist 12,800 years ago as Hancock claims, but assuming that the hunter gatherers that did live during that time were incapable of monolithic construction and more advanced technology than previously assumed is just as naive an assumption.