Narrator Prof. Susan Johnston

Did aliens build the pyramids? Is Stonehenge an ancient observatory? Isn't it true that
the Maya predicted that the world would end in 2012? Eminent George Washington University
archaeologist and anthropologist Susan A. Johnston looks at some of the ideas about the
past that are part of popular culture in the United States today in her latest Modern
Scholar course Myths and Mysteries in Archaeology.

Most people at some point in their lives think about the past.What was it like? Would we
like to have lived then? How different were they from us? This interest is illustrated by
the popularity of books, movies, and TV shows on all aspects of the past. And there is
a lot of information out there. Archaeologists, historians, and others are doing research
all the time, and people, both professional and not, are taking that information and
interpreting it in a huge variety of different ways. This has produced a sometimes
bewildering array of material about our past that appears in books, websites, and various
other media. Professor Johnston begins this fascinating course by asking how we know
things, what science is and how it works, and the role of archaeology in exploring what
the past was actually like. She then tackles the myths and mysteries that seemingly
permeate popular culture: Indiana Jones, the likelihood of ancient aliens and astronauts,
the many theories of the discovery of America, and the facts (and fictions) about Plato.s
Atlantis. This is a course unlike most, and one we know you.ll find intriguing.

Download File Size:223.8 MB

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