We are now on episode 77, the last episode of 2024, and I am Fredrik, your guide into the world of pseudo-archaeology. This time we will look back at the year that has gone by and look at some of the highlights.

Before that though, I want to thank all of you who support the show. You are really helping out producing this content, and I'm humbled and grateful for your support. If you want to help out, I'll tell you how to do that and get some bonus stuff at the end of the episode.

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Now that we have finished our preparations, let's dig into the episode.

2024 in Review

So 2024 is coming to an end, and it's been a pretty eventful year. I started it by breaking my hand while skiing back in February, and I can tell you that research with only one hand is a bit difficult. Still, I've been able to get out 25 episodes over the year, and it's covered a mixed bag of topics.

We started the year looking at Ancient Aliens' top 10 pyramids. This countdown began in December 2023 and included the structures in Hellinikon that I visited in April during a trip to Greece. However, the pyramids here in 2024 included the Djoser's Step pyramid and the pyramids on the Giza plateau, to which we dedicated several episodes explaining the construction and how we know what we know about these wonders of the world. I also got to look at Gunung Padang, but this time from the perspective of the Ancient Alien crowd. In that episode, I also got to talk about the wonderfully lousy paper on the pyramid. While it's been retracted, it's still up on the publisher's website; the only reason for that is that they want to have the cake and eat it, too. They should take it down; it was terribly flawed and should not have passed the initial peer review. I suspect, though, that it drives quite a bit of traffic to their page.

From the pyramids, we went on and discussed some real mysteries. The German golden hats or cones that were made during the Bronze Age and might have worked as calendars. I actually got to see one of them this year in person when I was in Berlin just a few weeks ago. It was a great trip with one huge disappointment: the Pergamon Museum. I had completely missed that it was closing for renovations in November, just a week before I came to Germany. The museum has the Ishtar Gate, the Pergamon Altar, and a lot of other things in its collection. It will, however, be closed for the next 30 years; I guess it will be something at least I might visit after my retirement.

Now, in episode 58, I also discussed the copper scroll found in the Dead Sea cache. What I found remarkable about it was that it is a real mystery and a treasure map. Contrary to what you see in games and movies, archaeologists rarely find maps that will take you to a treasure location. The question, however, as I discussed in the episode, is whether or not the values described in the scroll are genuine. Was it a symbolic inventory list like those that could be found in Greek temples, or was this an actual set of items stowed away in times of unrest? We are not sure, but none of the fortunes described within has so far been found. So here we have a real mystery, but as I discussed in the episode, we don't need aliens to explain the scrolls' existence.

Our journey then took us to the Shroud of Turin in episodes 59 and 60. I did enjoy those episodes, actually. While it's pretty apparent that it is a medieval forgery, it was refreshing to see that there were skeptical investigations back in the Middle Ages. What surprised me the most regarding these episodes was not what I could find in my research but comments and emails following them. This has been the episode that's generated the most significant amount of angry emails so far. Most of them are from Christians who I assume feel that their faith was attacked. Most of those lamenting were doing so solely on their feelings, but some tried to use the papers I was critiquing, pointing out that academics wrote them. The thing is that higher education alone does not protect you from bad ideas. We see this among the Ancient Alien people, where there are those with doctorates who argue for aliens interfering in the construction of ancient monuments and things like that. Looking at the papers, the authors often don't have a degree in the topics they are discussing. While some contribute with excellent research outside their initial fields, sometimes this can be a big red flag. Especially when they start at the wrong end, they think the shroud is authentic and then look for evidence to support this.

At the end of April, I reviewed Prof. Flint Dibble's debate against Graham Hancock on the Joe Rogan show. Dibble has since received the Skeptic of the Year award from the Merseyside Skeptic Society. He was also involved in putting together the #RealArchaeology online event that I was a part of. I created the website for that event and filmed a video on lake monsters and Vikings. If you missed it, the website with all the participation is still online, and you can go there to find a ton of great content.

May was dedicated to the Mayans. We had the brilliant Dimitris and Marie from the Ancient Mayan History Instagram account. The following episode was dedicated to the uneventful end of the world in 2012 with Andrew Kinkella. As always, it is a blast to have him on. Hopefully, we will hear more from him here in the coming year. Let me know if there's a specific Ancient Alien episode or topic you want him to tackle. There's so much weird alien lore out there we can show him.

Following this came one of maybe my favorite episodes. While the episode "Silencing History and Memory in the Christ of Europe," doesn't contain many aliens, it does cover something we in archaeology will have to tackle more and more: history and how states and museums can use it to present a preferred historical narrative. While the topic is far from new in the field of archaeology, it may not be discussed as much as it should be. So, this is a sort of case study on how things can go when a state dictates what can be researched and exhibited. Poland is far from the only country using history in this way, but it's maybe not often we think of this going on in countries with democracy. It's easy to believe this is an issue for states under a dictatorship with heavy censorship, but this is not true. Again, nobody is immune to misinformation.

I'm now going to fast-forward a little bit to September and the Kensington Runestone episode. I think this is among the better ones from the year, was fun to research and turned out quite well. I got to offer some things that are available in Swedish but not in English articles. I believe the hoax itself brings a better understanding of our history than the stone would, even if it was a genuine artifact by medieval Scandinavians.

Other Highlights

But the year has been more than just podcasting. I've been to some conferences, and among the favorites this year is the Theoretical Archaeology Groups' 45th annual meeting. The conference took place here in December in Bournemouth, England, and while there, I talked about how Ancient Aliens use human remains online. The very short version is that they use remains as objects rather than approaching them as humans. Indicating that they are not applying ethical thinking before posting it online. It is a prop, or a way to create sensationalism, which goes against how archaeologists handle human remains online. The British Association of Biological Anthropology and Osteoarchaeology, or BABAO, has developed some good guidelines for publishing remains online. I'll have a link to these on this episode's transcript page.

The highlight for me, however, was attending the first TAG Ethicsbowl, a concept that has been a part of the SAA annual meeting for a long time. I entered the room as part of the audience, but I jumped in due to a shortage of contestants in the teams. It really was an interesting debate regarding ethics in two random scenarios based on real events. I'm also delighted to say that my team won! Team Guilder, as we were called, got the honor of taking home the trophy for the first time. I believe it's at the University of Liverpool at the moment, but I would not have minded bringing it home. If you are interested in the scenarios, they will also be available on the transcript page.

Another huge highlight is those who are supporting the show. It really does help and it's amazing to have you here in our little community. You all really push me to improve the show and helping out building it. Feel free to reach out with thoughts, ideas, or what you want more of. Or questions, for that matter, happy to help sort out things you might encounter. So with just a few more hours of this strange year 2024 I want to wish my patrons and listeners a great 2025. Let's see what the next year has to bring.

Thank you for listening and supporting the show. Wishing you all a great 2025!