Bosnian pyramids, Part II, no photos please!

[marduk]

okay so next time you need brain surgery get an amateur to do it he'll be just as good
Archaeologists like anyone else who has a phd spend years studying for it and learning how to do their job properly
they are dedicated people
they are not hiding the truth from you and they don't join a members only club when they get their qualification
this claim is normal from people who didn't bother to get qualified but think they know evertything about something
I suggest you actually get to know a few qualified archaeolgists or at least write to them so that you can see how helpful they are before you go categorising them and making yourself into exactly what you are saying they are...

[Guest]

okay so next time you need

who are you talking to?

There is no archaeology club

yes i know but that is why it was in quotes.

No, not really. Actually we're all sick and tired of all the weirdos crawling out of the woodwork on this one.

i guess that is what Os wants as that is the result he is getting.

[Guest]

Of course there is and it isn't restricted to archaeology. Membership in any of these clubs is attained by getting a PH. D. in the subject. They are jealous of their field and seek to defend their turf from interlopers

You do NOT need a PHd to be a professional archaeologist; a good Honours degree is usually sufficient. In fact, the ruling body in Britain is the Institute of Field Archaeologists, who will grant affiliate membership to anyone who can prove a reasonable grounding in field archaeology. An acquaintance of mine got this by providing details of all the years he had spent surveying military defences from both world wars. He was granted affiliate membership despite having no degree in archaeology, let alone a PHd!
Have a look at their website-http://www.archaeologists.net/modules/t ... x.php?id=1
You do NOT need a PHd to lecture at a college/university; again, a good Honours degree usually suffices. You do NOT need a PHd to be a Doctor of Medicine; all British doctors graduate with exactly the same degree; there is no Honours. Once they decide to specialise in a chosen field, that's different. That is the situation in Britain, and probably the majority of the western world. If it's different in America, then you can safely consider it to be unique.
There is NO "club".

[tj]

If it's different in America, then you can safely consider it to be unique.

At least in my field, computer science, it is very difficult to get a job teaching at anything but the lowliest community colleges in the US with anything but a PHd. While it is possible to do so without, keeping that job when somebody comes along with one is much tougher. It is probably as it should be.

[Frank Harrist]

I have one year of college....no degree, but I have worked in the field with some of the top people in the archaeological field as far as Caddo Indians go. I have access to resources as a Steward with the THC which make me as informed as I want to be. I could get a job as a field archaeologist, but wihtout a degree the pay wouldn't be that good. Hell, even with a degree a field archaeologist doesn't make much. The big money is there only for PHDs. I'm not sure how big that money is even. It isn't necessary to have a degree to be able to work in archaeology, but it does help with the pay scale. There are many knowledgeable archaeologists who have no degree, but tons of experience. People like me don't do it for the money. We do it because we love it and we think it's important.

[Guest]

People like me don't do it for the money. We do it because we love it and we think it's important.

Exactly. And that's all that really matters in the general scheme of things.

[Paul H.]

barakat is not an amatuer after all

Let's not get carried away; Barakat only gets a namecheck for leading them to the chunks of glass. At no point does it describe his CV, and he played no part in actually formulating this theory.

The various ideas about the origin of Libyan Desert Glass (LDG) discussed in the BBC article have been around for years and discussed by various people in numerous papers. A few of the numerous published papers discussing LDG are:

Abate, B., C. Koeberl, J. R. Underwood, Jr., W. U. Reimold, P.
Buchanan, E. P. Fisk, and R. F. Giegengack, 1997, BP and
OASIS Impact Structures, Libya: Preliminary petrographic and
Geochemical Studies and Relation to Libyan Desert Glass. The
28th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, Houston, Texas,
March 17-21, 1997. NASA Johnson Space Center (JSC)

Abate, B, C. Koeberl, F. J. Kruger, and J. R. Underwood, Jr.,
1999, BP and Oasis impact structures, Libya, and their relation
to Libyan desert glass. In Large meteorite impacts and planetary
evolution; II, B. O. Dressler and V. L. Sharpton, eds., pp. 177-
192. Special Paper no. 339, Geological Society of America,
Boulder, CO,

Barrat, J. A., B. M. Jahn, J. Mosse, R. Rocchia, F. Keller, G.
R. Poupeau, and E. Diemer, 1997, Geochemistry and origin of
Libyan Desert glasses. Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta.
vol. 61, no. 9, pp. 1953-1959.

Clayton, P. A., and L. J. Spencer, 1934, Silica Glasses from
the Libyan Desert. Minerological Magazine. vol. 23, pp. 501-508.

Kleinmann, B., P. Horn, and F. Langenhorst, 2001, Evidence
for shock metamorphism in sandstones from the Libyan desert
glass strewn field. Meteoritics & Planetary Science. vol. 36,
no. 9, pp. 1277-1282.

Koeberl, C., 1985, Trace elements chemistry of the Libyan
Desert Glass. Meteoritics. vol. 20, p. 686.

Murali, A. V., E. J. Linstrom, M. E. Zolensky, J. R. Underwood,
and R. F. Giegenback, 1989, Evidence of extraterrestrial
component in the Libyan Desert Glass. EOS Transactions.
vol. 70, p. 1178.

Murali, A. V., M. E. Zolensky, J. R. Underwood, and R. F.
Giengengack, 1990, Cometary signatures in the Libyan desert
glass. Eos, Transactions (American Geophysical Union)
vol. 71, no. 43, p. 1425.

Qureshi, A. A., and H. A. Khan, 1988, Recognition of meteoritic
impact by fission track dating (FTD) technique. Geological
Bulletin, University of Peshawar. vol. 21. pp. 49-56.

Rocchia, R., E. Robin, F. Froehlich, H. Meon, L. Froget, and E.
Diemer, 1996, L'origine des verres du desert libyque; un impact
meteoritique. [ Origin of Libyan desert glass; a meteoritic
impact.] Comptes Rendus de l'Academie des Sciences, Serie II.
Sciences de la Terre et des Planetes. vol. 322, no. 10,
pp. 839-845.

Schaaf, P., and D. Mueller-Sohnius, 2002, Strontium and
neodymium isotopic study of Libyan Desert Glass; inherited
Pan-African age signatures and new evidence for target
material. Meteoritics & Planetary Science. vol. 37,
no. 4, pp. 565-576

Wasson, J. T., and K. Moore, 1998, Possible formation of Libyan
Desert glass by a Tunguska-like aerial burst. Meteoritics and
Planetary Science. vol. 33, no. 4, Supplement pp. A163-A164.

Weeks, R. A., J. R. Underwood, and R. F. Giegenback, R. F.,
1984, Libyan Desert Glass: A review. Journal Noncrystalline
Solids. vol. 67, pp. 593-619.

Wright, G., 1999, The riddle of the sands New Scientist.
vol. 163, no. 2194, p. 42. (July 10, 1999).

Dr. Koeberl, Dr. Murali, and others have been publishing evidence for the extraterrestrial origin of LDG for over twenty years. The air burst hypothesis has been around since at least 1998, as indicated by Wassen and Moore (1998) and Wright (1999). The basic hypotheses mentioned in the BBC article have been under discussion for many years. The existence of LDG has been known since 1932.

Many of these ideas were discussed in the "Silica '96" conference held at the University of Bologna, Italy in 1996 and published in the "Proceedings of the Silica '96 Meeting, held at the University of Bologna on the 18th July 1996. This volume was edited by Dr. Vincenzo de Michele. Thus, he already knew about LDG before he examined the scarab in Tutankhamen's pectoral. The table of contents for "Silica 96" is at http://fjexpeditions.com/resources/bibl/books/SG96.htm .

Also, Dr. de Michele, Dr. Barakat, and other geologists made joint expeditions, starting in 1994, to collect samples of LDG as reported in a paper, which they coauthored and was published in "Silica 96". Their "Silica 96" paper is:

Barakat, A. A., V. de Michele, G. Negro, B. Piacenza and
R. Serra, Some new data on the distribution of Libyan
Desert Glass (Great Sand Sea, Egypt) pp. 29-36.

The other papers coauthored by Dr. Barakat concerning LDG are:

Barakat, A. A., V. de Michele, D. Piacenza, S. Bonato, and
F. M. Bedewi, 1992, A short note on the geological field
trip to the Western Desert silica glass site. Annals of the
Geological Survey of Egypt. vol. 17, pp. 389-392.

and

Barakat, A. A., V. de Michele, G. Negro, and B. Piacenza, 1997,
A report on the 1994 field trip to the silica glass area, Great
Sand Sea, Western Desert. Annals of the Geological Survey of
Egypt. vol. 20, Part II, pp. 879-885.

The other articles, which I found so far in GEOREF and have Dr. Barakat as either an author or coauthor, are 1. "El Baz Crater; basaltic intrusion versus meteorite impact crater" (2001), 2. "Moessbauer study of El-Bahrain Meteorite" (2000), 3. "Meteoritic iron from the Libyan Glass area, southwestern Egypt" (1998), 4. "Is Isna Meteorite related to the fall of 1902?" (1993), and 5. "The desert of Great Sand Sea (GSS), Egypt; an interesting reservoir of meteorite finds" (1996).

Finally, according to the paper, which first formally noted that the scarab in Tutankhamen's pectoral is composed of Libyan Desert Glass, the person, who officially "discovered" this fact was Dr. de Michele. The paper is:

De Michele, V., 1998, The <<Libyan Desert Glass>> scarab
in Tutankhamen's pectoral. Sahara. no. 10, pp. 107-109.

Dr. Barakat's role in this research is discribed in the paper as:

“Aly A Barakat, geologist of EGSMA, obtained the necessary permit
for a non destructive analysis and, on the 17th October 1998, I
was able to carry out the gemological analysis of the scarab.”

Paul H.

[Paul H.]

Of course there is and it isn't restricted to archaeology. Membership in any of these clubs is attained by getting a PH. D. in the subject. They are jealous of their field and seek to defend their turf from interlopers

You do NOT need a PHd to be a professional archaeologist; a good Honours degree is usually sufficient.

...text deleted....

There is NO "club".

A person does not have to be a professional archaeologist to be an archaeologist. For example, in the the United States there are many state archaeological societies, in which nonacademic people can on their own time, i.e. weekly night classes, become trained avocational archaeologists. a good example of this is the "Program for Avocational Archaeological Certification" managed by the Colorado Archaeological Society and the Office of the State Archaeologist of Colorado. The details about this program can be found at http://www.coloradohistory-oahp.org/pro ... cindex.htm , http://www.coloradohistory-oahp.org/pro ... ac/faq.htm , and http://www.coloradohistory-oahp.org/pro ... csched.htm . Such archaeological societies are places where the avocational archaeologists can get together with professional archaeologists and participate in joint research and publishing papers. There are nonPhD, avocational archaeologists and nonPhD. professional archaeologists, who have had a lengthy list of peer-reviewed and other papers and reports of theirs published.

However, to get grants and cultural resource managment contracts, a person typically has to be a professional (degreed), i.e. MS or PhD, archaeologist of some sort.

By the way, I do **not** have a PhD. So far, my lack of a PhD has neither caused me to be banned from the "club"; kicked off a site; nor caused either a report, paper, or map of mine to be rejected. I occasionally had papers rejected, as happens to everyone, PhD or not, because I made some very bad mistakes in them. In those cases, I am glad that the editors and peer-reviewers did their job and did what they are paid to do.

Paul H.

[Guest]

Cheers Paul. I want to have a look at some of those articles at some point; I'll bet they're fascinating.
On the subject of archaeology, I agree that a PhD doesn't instantly make one a superior professional! That was why I posted the IFA link; they're interested in promoting EVERYONE's interest in the subject, amateurs AND professional, not just stuffy academics. You would probably find their vocational schemes are the same as the ones you mentioned, or very similar. I personally can't see how insisting members stick to a code of conduct constitutes a private club, designed to keep the Plebs out.
Lack of a PhD never crippled me socially or professionally either, btw.

[Paul H.]

Cheers Paul. I want to have a look at some of those articles at some point; I'll bet they're fascinating.

A number of articles or their abstracts about Libyan Desert Glass are available online from the The NASA Astrophysics Data System at http://fulltext.adsabs.harvard.edu/ and http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html . Enter "desert glass", with the quotation marks, into the "Enter Abstract Words/Keywords" box and press the "send query" button and you will get a list of a number papers about Libyan Desert Glass, of which you can get a PDf file of the entire paper to read. Most of the papers, which are listed from such a search, at least have an abstract, which is available to read.

Paul H.

[Beagle]

This is Robert Schoch writing. I have been following the controversy over the “Bosnian Pyramids.” So far, all I have seen are miscellaneous articles in the popular media and various analyses that have been released thus far. In my opinion, the controversy that the alleged pyramids have engendered is fascinating unto itself in terms of the sociology of science and popular culture, how arguments between “experts” and “amateurs” are framed, and the tactics both sides utilize (especially certain “experts” as they attempt to outright dismiss the work of people who do not belong to their “club”). But, beyond that, I would like to know what exactly is going on with the Bosnian Pyramids in terms of potential ancient occupation and usage of the site.

When I used the term "the club" earlier in this thread, I did it while explaining to someone how and why Dr. Schoch is often spoke of in derisive terms. As far as I know Dr. Schoch is the person who coined the phrase.

Dr. Schoch can be reached through his website, or for a while, through the "Daily Grail" while he is in Bosnia. As you know, he has said that he will attempt to answer questions through TDG while there.

[Minimalist]

okay so next time you need brain surgery get an amateur to do it he'll be just as good

That's about the typical reply I would have expected. I suggest you consider this.

http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/sepp/20 ... _in_us.htm

According to the NIA's report, over 784,000 people die annually due to medical mistakes. Comparatively, the 2001 annual death rate for heart disease was 699,697 and the annual death rate for cancer was 553,251.

Over 2.2 million people are injured every year by prescription drugs alone and over 20 million unnecessary prescriptions for antibiotics are prescribed annually for viral infections. The report also shows that 7.5 million unnecessary medical and surgical procedures are performed every year and 8.9 million people are needlessly hospitalized annually. Based on the results of NIA's report, it is evident that there is a pressing need for an overhaul of the entire American medical system.

The Medical 'Club' not only serves to cover up the mistakes of their members, behind a so-called Code of Ethics, but also actively seeks to make sure that their monopoly on treatment is maintained by decrying any attempts to explore alternatives. Doctors and lawyers are two of the worst offenders as they have managed to get legislation passed which makes violations of their 'clubs' perogatives a matter of criminal law.

[Minimalist]

There is NO "club".

You're being naive, RK.

[Guest]

No, you're just being paranoid.....or nursing a king-sized chip on your shoulder for whatever reason best known to yourself.

[Frank Harrist]

There is no "club" per se', but there are people who are considered outside the norm. Pseudo-archaeologists who make claims which go against the accepted "dogma". These people are often, but not always ostracised from the mainstream for their un-proven theories and there is politics involved in archaeology. I personally have not experienced it around here, but then I haven't come up with any off the wall ideas...at least that I made public. People who make extraordinary claims without extraordinary proof are always going to be suspect. That's in any discipline or any group of people. The ones who want to stand ouside the circle are allowed to do so, but the party is inside. The ousiders are necessary in order to move the science forward sometimes, but they have to prove themselves to be accepted. Some examplkes. Al Goodyear claims to have found artifacts that are 50kya. There ain't suppose to be none of them. He was chastised a bit for announcing it to the media before he published a peer-reviewed paper, but he hasn't been ostracised for it. It is an extraordinary claim, but he has extraordinary evidence, although some question it. People like Schoch and Hancock and West make claims which cannot be backed up to the satisfaction of the mainstream and theses are claims which will change everything. Gotta have balls to do that, but you also gotta have lots of good evidence presented in a proffessional manner to back it up. Schoch has done this with the sphinx, even though it isn't widely accepted. People are willing to consider it at least. Of course there are always the old school guys like Hawass who think they already know it all. In my experience these are the exceptions. If you really look at things there are several clubs or camps. No two archaeologists agree on everything and that's healthy. The system actually works.