Hyperdiffusionism: Difference between revisions

{{short description|Archaeological hypothesis}}

'''Hyperdiffusionism''' is a [[pseudoarchaeological]] hypothesis suggesting that certain historical technologies or ideas originated with a single people or [[civilization]] before their adoption by other cultures. Thus, all great civilizations that share similar cultural practices, such as construction of [[pyramid]]s, derived them from a single common progenitor.<ref name="Fagan">{{cite book|editor-last=Fagan| editor-first=Garrett G.|title=Archaeological Fantasies| year=2006| publisher=Routledge| location=Oxford, England|isbn=978-0-415-30593-8|pages=362–367}}</ref> According to its proponents, examples of hyperdiffusion can be found in religious practices, cultural technologies, [[megalith]]ic monuments, and lost ancient civilizations.

The idea of hyperdiffusionism differs in several ways from [[trans-cultural diffusion]], one being that hyperdiffusionism is usually not testable due to its pseudo-scientific nature.<ref name="Williams">{{cite book|last=Williams|first=Stephen|title=Fantastic Archaeology: The Wild Side of North American Prehistory|year=1991|publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press| location=Philadelphia| isbn=0-8122-1312-2|pages=[https://archive.org/details/fantasticarchaeo00will/page/224 224–257]| url=https://archive.org/details/fantasticarchaeo00will/page/224}}</ref>{{rp|255-56}} Additionally, unlike trans-cultural diffusion, hyperdiffusionism does not use trading and cultural networks to explain the expansion of a society within a single culture; instead, hyperdiffusionists claim that all major cultural innovations and societies derive from one (usually lost) ancient civilization.<ref name="Williams" />{{rp|224-32}} Ergo, the [[Tucson artifacts]] derive from [[ancient Rome]], carried by the "Romans who came across the Atlantic and then overland to Arizona;" this is believed because the artifacts resembled known ancient Roman artifacts.<ref name="Williams" />{{rp|246}}

Mainstream archeologists regard the hyperdiffusionism hypothesis as [[pseudoarchaeology]].<ref>{{citation|jstor=j.ctt1vxm8r7.13|title=Alternative archaeologies|last1=Moshenska|first1=Gabriel|year=2017|pages=122–137|publisher=UCL Press|isbn=978-1-911576-43-3}}</ref>

=== Charles Hapgood ===

In [[Charles Hapgood]]'s book ''Maps of the Ancient Sea Kings,'' he concludes that ancient land formations gave way to hyperdiffusionism and the diffusion "of a true culture."<ref name="Hapgood">{{cite book|last=Hapgood|first=Charles H.|title=Maps of the Ancient Sea Kings| year=1966| publisher=Chilton Company| location=Philadelphia|pages=193–206}}</ref> This culture could have been more advanced than that of Egypt or Greece because it was the foundation of a worldwide culture. Hapgood also suggests that the [[Three-age system]] of archeology is irrelevant due to [[primitive culture]]s co-existing with modern societies.<ref name="Hapgood" />{{rp|193-94}}

Heliolithic Culture, as [[Grafton Elliot Smith]] refers to it, consistsofcultural practices such as [[megalith]]s. Similar designs and methods of construction of such pieces have what seem like a linear geographical distribution.<ref name="Smith 1929">{{cite book|last=Smith|first=G. Elliot| title=The MigrationsofEarly Culture|year=1929|publisher=Manchester University Press| location=Manchester|oclc= 1868131}}</ref> These heliolithic cultures can refer to religious customs that share distinctive practices, such as the worship ofa[[Solar Deity]]. As this trope is seen in numerous belief systems, Smith believesitis diffused from one ancient civilization.<ref name="Smith 1929" />{{rp|132}}

Early Man Distribution refers to Smith's implication that Man derived from "six well-defined types of mankind," who comprise the sources for Earth's population.<ref name="Smith 1931">{{cite book|last=Smith|first=G. Elliot|title=The Evolution of Man|year=1931|publisher=Ernest Benn Limited|location=London|oclc=637203360|pages=13–47}}</ref> The six types of mankind are the [[Aboriginal Australians]], [[Negro]]s, [[Mongols]], and the [[Mediterranean race|Mediterranean]], [[Alpine race|Alpine]], and [[Nordic race|Nordic]] races.<ref name="Smith 1931" />{{rp|15}} Recently this classification has been labeled as [[scientific racism]].{{By whom|date=September 2016}}

=== Barry Fell ===

Mystery Hill, or [[America's Stonehenge]], is the site which [[Barry Fell]] refers to as the primary basis of his hypothesis that ancient [[Celts]] once populated [[New England]].<ref name="Fell">{{cite book|last=Fell|first=Barry|title=Ancient Settlers in the New World| year=1976| publisher=Quadrangle|location=New York|isbn=0-8129-0624-1|pages=[https://archive.org/details/americabc00fell/page/81 81–92]| url=https://archive.org/details/americabc00fell/page/81}}</ref> Mystery Hill, Fell believes, was a place of worship for the Celts and [[Phoenicia]]n mariners.<ref name="Fell" />{{rp|91}} These ancient mariners, more commonly known as the [[Druids]], are said to have populated Europe at the same time. He hypothesizes that they were the ancient settlers of North America. Also, he believes that what he describes as inscriptions on stone and tablet artifacts from this site are in an ancient language derived from common sources of the [[Goidelic languages]].<ref name="Fell" />{{rp|92}}

These three authors describe hyperdiffusionism as the driving force behind the apparent cultural similarities and population distribution among all civilizations. Hapgood's hypothesis states that one specific civilization is responsible for similar cultural practices in all other civilizations. Smith says that religions are proof of hyperdiffusionism, as similar worship ceremonies and symbols recur in geographically separated societies. Also, Smith believes that the Earth's population is made up of six types of humans, who diffused across the Earth's continents by virtue of their skin color.<ref name="Smith 1931" />{{rp|47-48}} Finally, Fell asserts that ancient mariners, such as Druids and Phoenicians, traveled from Europe and comprised the early population of ancient America.

=== Carl Whiting Bishop ===

[[Carl Whiting Bishop]] in the 1930s and the 1940s produced a series of articles arguing hyperdiffusionism in explaining the expansion of technology into China. Among the scholars influenced by Bishop were [[Owen Lattimore]], who was intrigued by Bishop's emphasis on geography as a shaping factor in Chinese civilization and his emphasis on field work rather than library research.<ref>{{citation |first = Robert P. | last = Newman| title = Owen Lattimore and the 'Loss' of China| publisher = University of California Press| year = 1992 | isbn = 978-0-520-07388-3| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=_3q55sf6X2UC&pg=PA24&dq=Carl+Whiting+Bishop#v=onepage |ref = none}}, p. 24</ref>

== Lost civilizations ==

A common hyperdiffusionist hypothesis is that the similarities among disparate civilizations were inherited from the civilization of a lost continent, either [[Atlantis]] or [[Lemuria (continent)|Lemuria]], which has since sunk into the sea. Sometimes Egypt is taken to be an intermediate civilization that inherited its culture from the lost continent and in turn passed it on to other civilizations. According to G. Elliot Smith, Egypt was the source of civilization for Asia, India, China, the Pacific, and eventually America.<ref name="Smith 1929" />{{rp|45}} [[File:Book map1.jpg|thumb|Book map1]]

== Mayans ==

According to Hapgood, the pyramids in South America and Mexico may be indicative of cultural practices shared with ancient Egyptian civilization.<ref name="Hapgood" />{{rp|200}} He theorized that the ancient Maya were strongly influenced by the diffusion of ancient Egyptian social and political cultures,<ref name="Webster">{{Citation | last =Webster | first =David | contribution =The Mystique of the Ancient Maya | year =2006 | title =Archaeological Fantasies | editor-last =Fagan | editor-first =Garrett G.| pages =129–154 | place =Oxford | publisher =Routledge | id = 978-0-415-30593-8 }}</ref> and that they became a civilized culture due to the migration of citizens from Atlantis after that island sank.<ref name="Hale">{{citation| last=Hale| first=Christopher| contribution= The Atlantean Box |editor-last =Fagan | editor-first =Garrett G.| title= Archaeological Fantasies |year=2006 |publisher=Routledge| location=Oxford|isbn=978-0-415-30593-8| pages=235–59}}</ref> For example, he says "How did the [[Mayans]] achieve such precise results...the knowledge may have, of course, been derived by the [[Babylonians]] or the [[Egyptians]]".<ref name="Hapgood" />{{rp|198}} It is also said that Mayan artifacts resemble those of a classical culture, possibly Greece.<ref name="Fagan" />{{rp|147}} This plays into [[Atlantis#Plato's dialogues|Plato's Account]] of the ancient battle for [[Atlantis]], which led to the downfall of the civilization.

== Religion and mythology ==

Hapgood finds evidence of ancient Egyptian "expression" in the writings of [[Hinduism]] and [[Buddhism]]. He notes that in these writings there are aappear deities that are similar to those worshiped throughout the world. Furthermore, there are myths and creation stories that are said to have a common origin in Egypt.<ref name="Hapgood" />{{rp|204-5}} G. Elliot Smith sees [[Mummification]] as a prime example of how religious customs prove the diffusion of a single ancient culture.<ref name="Smith 1929" />{{rp|21}} He believes that only an advanced civilization, such as Egypt, could create such a peculiar belief, and that it then spread by way of ancient mariners.<ref name="Smith 1929" />{{rp|133-34}}

== Critiques ==

=== Ethnocentrism and racism ===

[[Michael Shermer]] states that using racial [[Taxonomy (general)|taxonomy]] in order to make abstract assertions of racial superiority is another expression of ethnocentrism.<ref name="Shermer">{{cite book |last1=Shermer |first1=Michael |title=Why People Believe Weird Things |date=1997 |publisher=St. Martin's Press |location=New York |isbn=978-0-8050-7089-7 |edition=2002}}</ref>{{rp|248}} He asks, "how can we 'pigeonhole' blacks as permissive or whites as intelligent when such categories...are actually best described as a continuum?"<ref name ="Shermer" />{{rp|250}} Shermer claims that the belief that one race and/or culture is superior to another defeats the purpose of cultural evolution, and that we cannot dismiss evidence of [[blending inheritance]] among all cultures.<ref name ="Shermer" />{{rp|247-51}} Shermer uses [[The Bell Curve]] by [[Richard Herrnstein]] and [[Charles Murray (political scientist)|Charles Murray]] as an example of [[pigeonholing]]; Herrnstein and Murray try to pigeonhole civilizations into racial categories based on flawed measures of intelligence.<ref name ="Shermer" />{{rp|242-44}}

[[Alice Beck Kehoe]] says that diffusionism is a "grossly racist ideology".<ref name="Kehoe">{{cite book|last=Kehoe|first=Alice Beck|title=Controversies in Archaeology|year=2008|publisher=Left Coast Press, INC|location=California|isbn=978-1-59874-062-2|pages=140–172}}</ref>{{rp|144}} Although she agrees that diffusion of culture can occur through contact and trading, she disagrees with the theory that all civilization came from one superior ancient society.<ref name="Kehoe" />{{rp|148}}

=== [[Pseudoarchaeology]] ===

Critical thinker and archaeologist Stephen Williams uses the phrase "Fantastic Archaeology" to describe the archeological theories and discoveries which he defines as "fanciful archaeological interpretations".<ref name="Williams" />{{rp|12}} These interpretations usually lack artifacts, data, and testable theories to back up the claims made.

=== Hyperdiffusionism versus Independent Invention ===

[[Alexander Goldenweiser (anthropologist)|Alexander Goldenweiser]] in ''Culture: The Diffusion Controversy'' stated that there are reasons for believing that culture may arise independently rather than being transmitted. In addition, Goldenweiser insists that behavior is primitive and that cultural similarities may arise simply because they are reflections of adaptive traits that all human beings have evolved. Goldenweiser disagrees with the theory of hyperdiffusionism, stating that "culture is not contagious"<ref name="Goldenweiser">{{cite book|last=Goldenweiser|first=Alexander|title=Culture: The Diffusion Controversy|url=https://archive.org/details/culturediffusion00smitrich|url-access=registration |year=1927|publisher=W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.|location=New York|oclc=1499530|pages=[https://archive.org/details/culturediffusion00smitrich/page/99 99–106]}}</ref>{{rp|104}} and that the data fails to support the theory.<ref name="Goldenweiser" />{{rp|100-106}}

== Methods ==

[[Stephen Williams (archeologist)|Stephen Williams]] in his chapter "Across The Sea They Came" introduced a few hyperdiffusionists, their discoveries, and how they "tested" artifacts, beginning with [[Harold S. Gladwin]] who made his "fantastic" discoveries at an Arizona Pueblo site, [[Gila Pueblo Archaeological Foundation]]. Gladwin favored the diffusion theories which later influenced his methodologies for dating the artifacts at the site. This belief led him to ignore the data that was found at the [[Folsom Site]] in his chronology as it made his "Man descended from Asia into the New World" theory impossible.<ref name="Williams" />{{rp|230}}

The section continues with Cyclone Covey and Thomas W. Bent, specifically their publications on the [[Tucson Artifacts]] and their theory that ancient Romans traveled to Arizona. Williams pokes fun at this theory in his book ''Fantastic Archaeology'', and criticizes the authors for failing to explain exactly how and why these artifacts were found in Arizona, and focusing their attention instead only on the artifacts themselves and their similarities to Roman artificats.<ref name="Williams" />{{rp|240}}

Concluding, Williams points out in the chapter how hyperdiffusionists fail to recognize solid archaeological research methods and/or ignore conflicting data and contextual evidence. They are "tailoring their finds with any similar chronology or in-depth linguistic analysis that fits into their scenarios".<ref name="Williams" />{{rp|255-56}}

{{Reflist|33em}}

[[Category:Hyperdiffusionism in archaeology| ]]