I’m in the midst of marking essays so I don’t really have the time to devote much more than expressions of exasperation in regard to this puff piece on Doutré and the boulders.
Gah.
Tag: Celtic New Zealand
The Letters
Due to popular demand, here are the three letters sent to the Herald (mine included) dealing with the publication of the puff piece on the Celtic New Zealand Thesis.
New Zealand Herald, Thursday, May 7th, 2009
New Zealand Herald, Friday, May 8th, 2009
New Zealand Herald, Thursday May 14th, 2009
No Retraction, No Surrender
So, the Celtic New Zealand issue rumbles away at the Herald. My letter, a support letter from Paul Moon and yesterday a letter from an archaeologist-cum-astronomer ((I always want to say ‘astrologer’ when I think ‘astronomer,’ which is a weird hang-up and sometimes causes trouble in class)) ((I’m debating the merits and ethics of reprinting the letters here. Should I put them up for all to see, knowing that this might well be considered a breach of copyright? Answers in the comment box, please.)) debunking Doutré and his ‘archaeological method.’
But no retraction, no (as far as I know) responses from Wayne Thompson and thus no closure. Doutré has had his puff piece and now has a nice citation in a national newspaper to use when referencing his own work.
On the plus side, the letters page seems to be the most popular part of the Herald and a lot of people will now be aware that there was a(nother) stupid article printed by our ‘illustrious’ and biggest daily newspaper.
Still, it would be nice to see some social responsibility exercised by the Herald.
One lives in hope.
The Letter
Well, my letter on the Doutré article saw print in the Herald today. I reprint it here with my own permission.
In a recent article (“Call to save hilltop boulders”) Wayne Thompson presents the idea that there was a pre-Maori Celtic culture in New Zealand as if it were an uncontroversial thesis.
This Celtic thesis claims that when Maori arrived in New Zealand they wiped out a pre-existing Celtic people and co-opted or buried the remnants of the prior civilisation. This view, largely articulated and expounded by one Martin Doutré (who, over the last few months, has published articles in the Franklin e-Local and Uncensored Magazine advancing his ugly and racist history of New Zealand), flies in the face of research into our country’s pre-history. It goes against the work of historians like Michael King and James Belich. It is also contrary to the archaeological, ethnological and linguistic evidence of our best researchers. Thompson presents Doutré as if he is is a credible voice on New Zealand’s pre-history when he is, in fact, not a qualified researcher at all but rather an untrained amateur whose views are entirely discredited.
Thompson’s article is not the kind of quality reporting we should expect of a national newspaper like the New Zealand Herald. I, for one, am disappointed.
But is it news?
So, Martin Doutré has himself some free publicity for the Celtic New Zealand thesis in today’s issue of the Herald. The evidence; boulders.
Celtic Boulders.
Well, round concretions; about a dozen of them. These concretions, up to 3 metres in diameter, were uncovered about thirty-eight years. The mystery, apparently, is how they ended up on top of a hilltop, because:
“It sparked a lot of mystery over how they got there,” said Mr Doutré. “They were concretion boulders, which can only form in sea sediments, yet they had made it to the top of this high, yellow clay hill.”
That sounds a little interesting, doesn’t it? Boulders in non-normal space ((That should be a prog-rock album name.)) That would suggest that the boulders had been moved, in some way. Could it be that they were moved by human hands?
Geological Society spokesman Bruce Hayward said there was no mystery how the boulders got on thehill.
He said they were 70 million years old and pushed up from the sea floor and the enclosing countryside eroded over time, leaving them exposed.
Well, that seems to squash that part of the thesis.
Doutré (and his ilk) seem to have a problem when it comes to understanding site deposition; sometimes items are part of the landscape because geology, not humanity, put them there. Doutré thinks that because they are on a hilltop that they were placed there. He assumes that location is almost entirely intentional rather than accidental, which is a problem for his entire `archaeological’ method; he cannot tell the difference, by and large, between objects that are placed on a landscape versus objects that happen to be there.
Still, perhaps the boulders, as objects whose presence in the landscape can be explained entirely naturally, can still lend credence to Doutré’s thesis, because:
Some boulders showed ancient etchings of geometric designs similar to those on structures in Britain dating back to 3150BC.
The image in the article isn’t particularly clear; you can see spirals (and what looks like the Bass Clef, which is a remarkable bit of foresight by our `Celtic tangata whenua’) and the like, which somehow suggests that these markings are pre-Maori and of Celtic origin.
Because not only do we all know that there are no spiral patterns in Maori art but, really, that the only people to use the spiral in art were the Celts.
That seems to the argument, it really does.
It’s a little hard to know what to say to such vacuous claims; it’s harder still to know what to say when the Herald publishes blatant puff pieces for such wacky views.
I think a few choice letters to the editor are in order. Get typing.
As I go to press (so to speak): Stephen Judd weighs in.
Doutré on Stage
I’m thinking we need to drive ourselves up a posse and go make ourselves known. It’s a pricey $40 if we book now but the chance to ask awkward questions could be unrivaled.