(Header image: from Lewandowsky et al. 2012:122) I was recently invited to give a guest lecture to students in an Abuses of Antiquity course at a local (to me) university, in which one of their topics is pseudoarchaeology. One of the things I was asked to talk about is, well, talking. To be more specific,...

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Happy 2024, everyone! I recently returned from the Society of Historical Archaeology annual conference in Oakland, California, which is always held at the start of the year. This year I was invited to present a paper as part of an excellent session on frontier mythologies, which gave me an opportunity to jump into something I...

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Caption for Header Photo: Brother XII and the Aquarian Foundation Board of Governors, July, 1927 (photo on file with Nanaimo Archives) It has been a long time since I’ve written any blog posts, and an even longer time since I’ve mentioned anything about one of the core focuses of my PhD research – Brother XII...

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The Call For Papers (and sessions) for the 2023 Society for Historical Archaeology Conference is finally open, from now until June 30 (2022)! My colleagues, Emily Haines and Liam Wadsworth, and I decided we wanted to host a themed poster session at the conference. There’s only one hiccup – the SHA does not have themed...

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Title image: The top of a 4-page pamphlet Brother XII published in 1926, announcing the formation of the Aquarian Foundation and the work they were about to begin (pamphlet is from my own collection) Recently Twitter introduced a new concept called Twitter Spaces, through which you can host speaking events on your Twitter page. After having listened in to a few great Spaces talks about topics relevant to my research (and also paying attention to…

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Wow, it has been a long time since I last wrote a blog post. It doesn’t feel like it has been that long, but in that time I have wrapped up an entire semester of classes and presented at two conferences (the CAAs and an interdisciplinary conference about Star Wars)! And as I write this blog post I’m actually attending a third conference (about right-wing extremism). So that’s why it has been four months between…

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Title image: one of my favourite quotes from Arnold 2006 If you’ve read any of my blog posts about pseudoarchaeology (A, B, C, and D for example), or read any of my pop culture reviews involving pseudoarchaeology (A and B for example), or maybe even been able to catch one of the talks I’ve given about pseudoarchaeology (like A), you’ll notice a few common themes. Firstly, I talk a lot about the dangers of pseudoarchaeology…

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First things first, HAPPY NEW YEAR! 2020 was a nightmare year for many reasons, and while 2021 won’t immediately change things (let’s be completely honest about that) it is, at the very least, a fresh new year. That I am going to remain hopeful about. If you’ll remember, a couple of years ago now I ran the Survey of Canadian Beliefs. This survey, which I modelled after the Chapman Survey of American Fears, was designed…

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Arkworld Vol. 1, April 2020, Devil’s Due Comics (Post image: Arkworld Vol 1. Cover) It’s time for another edition of my series, Digging in the Wrong Place! I have two other posts about books in the works (that one day soon I will actually finish and publish), but for now let’s talk about comics. One of my research interests is in the relationship between pop culture, archaeology, and pseudoarchaeology. I’m always interested to see how…

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So here’s a neat thing – I’m starting a PhD in September (2020). Honestly, the whole thing still feels a bit surreal, because I never imagined myself doing a PhD. For the longest time I didn’t even know what a PhD was, but as I slowly started to figure it out I also began to think that it might be something I was interested in. So I decided to take a big chance and am…

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