Eliminationist archeologists: Paul Edward Montgomery Ramírez, ‘Settlers to Solutreans: Alternative Archaeologies, Media, & Anti-Indigenous Violence’, in Lorna-Jane Richardson, Andrew Reinhard, Nicole Smith (eds), The Routledge Handbook of Archaeology and the Media in the 21st Century, 2024 | settler colonial studies blog

Eliminationist archeologists: Paul Edward Montgomery Ramírez, ‘Settlers to Solutreans: Alternative Archaeologies, Media, & Anti-Indigenous Violence’, in Lorna-Jane Richardson, Andrew Reinhard, Nicole Smith (eds), The Routledge Handbook of Archaeology and the Media in the 21st Century, 2024

30Jun24

Abstract: The Canadian Broadcast Corporation’s (CBC) long-running documentary series, The Nature of Things, featured a controversial episode titled The Ice Bridge. This documentary forwarded and dramatically re-enacted a hypothesis known as the Solutrean Hypothesis, that asserts the Americas were peopled first by sailors from Europe. This hypothesis, having been thoroughly debunked, is one that gets re-considered with regularity among European and Euro-settlers in what is currently the United States and Canada. This fringe archaeology speaks directly to the settler colonial logic of elimination, which seeks to exterminate all traces of Indigenous people, to ‘indigenize’ the settler population. It is not alone in this but exists within a spectrum of ‘archaeologies’ from conspiratorial and paranormal pseudoarchaeologies, to fringe hypotheses, and accepted (in the past or currently) scientific approaches that continue the violence of settler colonialism. Each of these has a very real impact on the wellbeing of Indigenous peoples. Attachment to these understandings of the world also fuel white supremacy and colonial violence that can be expressed in dangerously physical ways. This chapter examines media’s engagement with archaeological approaches – mainstream, fringe, and pseudo – and their considerations of the people of the Americas. Cases in media coverage of pseudoarchaeological peopling of the Americas, more ‘scientific’ approaches in the Solutrean Hypothesis, and coverage of the controversial case of Kennewick Man are discussed for their contributions to the logic of elimination, anti-Indigenous violence, and narratives of white supremacy. This entry highlights how presenting archaeology is not neutral and while we may dismiss pseudoarchaeology, we must address it for the real damage it does. Not only this, but in the pursuit of scientific knowledge, more formal archaeologies and reporting around them can also replicate similar harm to marginalized people. Archaeologists must be responsible in action and mindful of the damage of settler colonialism in our work.

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