248. Elizabeth Weiss on Woke Archaeology and Erasing the Past
The Michael Shermer Show
Michael Shermer
4.4 • 921 Ratings
🗓️ 15 February 2022
⏱️ 129 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Shermer and anthropologist Elizabeth Weiss discuss: fossil ownership; how anthropologists draw conclusions about past peoples through their study of skeletons and mummies; why continued curation of human remains is important; why anthropologists should prioritize scientific research over other perspectives; the future of archaeology on its present trajectory toward the politicization of science; why the fossil remains of most Native American sites have tenuous or no connection whatsoever to modern tribal peoples living nearby; the consensus on how long ago migrations began; her lawsuit against San Jose State University for defaming her as a “racist” and blocking her from further scientific study of the fossil collection she has curated for 17 years, and much more…
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You're listening to the Michael Sherman Show. |
| 0:11.6 | Welcome to the... The Michael Sherman Show |
| 0:19.6 | Welcome to the Michael Sherman show. I'm your host Michael Sherman. My guest today is Elizabeth |
| 0:27.0 | Weiss. She is the author co-author of this book, Repatriation and Erasing the Past. Dr Elizabeth Weiss completed her BA in anthropology from the University of California, Santa Cruz in 1996, and earned her MA |
| 0:35.8 | in anthropology from California State |
| 0:37.8 | University Sacramento in 1998. |
| 0:40.7 | She holds a PhD from the University of Arkansas in Environmental Dynamics, an interdisciplinary |
| 0:47.0 | program involving anthropology and the geosciences, which she completed in 2001doctoral research associate at the |
| 0:57.8 | Canadian Museum of Civilization and began teaching at San Jose State |
| 1:02.1 | University in 2004. |
| 1:04.0 | For other books include reading the bone activity, biology and culture |
| 1:10.0 | and paleopathology and perspective, Bone Health and Disease through time. |
| 1:17.0 | Okay, well this is quite the, quite the Elizabeth was once married to J. Felipe Rushton, the very controversial |
| 1:36.0 | Canadian psychologist who has come back into the news recently because he got the support of Ed Wilson who recently died. |
| 1:46.0 | Anyway this came about because Elizabeth and I were discussing her book and her |
| 1:51.3 | work and her lawsuit against her university. |
| 1:54.0 | She's suing the university for calling her a racist and shutting her out of the |
| 1:58.7 | fossil collection that she has curated for the past 17 years. Why? Because she has been critical of the |
| 2:06.4 | repatriation movement. If you're not familiar with this, this was a movement in |
| 2:11.7 | the 1990s to return fossils of Native Americans, paleo |
| 2:19.9 | Native Americans, these are mostly fossils from many thousands of years ago to the tribes |
| 2:26.5 | currently living in the areas where the digs were made and then reburrying the fine. |
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