Kendrick Frazier (1942–2022)

This is the story of the archaeological study of Chaco Canyon, from in 1849 to the 1999. The unique architecture and village layout of Chaco Canyon flourished from the 10th to 12th centuries, approximately. Although archaeologists initially assumed the the style was limited to Chaco Canyon in New Mexico, it was eventually determined to extend over a much larger region that includes modern day Arizona, Utah, Colorado as well as New Mexico. In spite of 150 years of studies, archaeologists still do not have a good understanding of what community life was like, nor what caused the unique “Chaco” features to rise and decline. Even modern Hopi, Zuni and Pueblo Indians have not been able to fully explain the phenomenon, although both they and the archaeologists believe that some of the Chaco people are some of their ancestors. This is a very good book. The informal writing style is more readable than is sometimes the case with scientific books.… (meer)

My reactions to reading this in 1992.

An interesting book on a variety of topics.

I’m not that interested in paranormal mental powers, but I did find the debunking of a “psychic” detective interesting. As I suspected, when two original documented facts are examined, the psychic abilities pretty much vanish in the light of reality.

I enjoyed James Randi’s Project Alpha in which he gave parapsychologists plenty of rope to hang themselves. As with most things in life, the articles showing the statistical fallacies of most parapsychology studies reveal that details count.

My main interest is in cryptozoology, fringe archaeology, and pseudosciences and there was plenty on their history and practice: the possibly genetic basis of palmistry (a number of genetic defects with behavioral implications do manifest themselves in palm and fingers -- but not like palmistry says), a detailed look at the Shroud of Turin and alleged photographs of the Loch Ness monster’s flipper, wacko archaelogy which postulates Phoenicians-Libyans with all kinds of feats like establishing naval academies in California and exploring Polynesia, the nonevidence for a lunar influence on homocide, a method of recreating the Nazca drawings (sans space brother supervision), bizarre Creationist claims (condensing canopies of water yielding Noah’s flood), and Philip Klass’ explanation of the forensic limits of hypnosis in UFO cases.… (meer)