Channel 4 - Lost Worlds The Story of Archaeology (2000) Part 4 Looking for One Beginning

This six-part series presents the definitive history of archaeology, a 250-year worldwide odyssey that began with the unearthing of the ruins of Pompeii buried beneath the ash of Mt. Vesuvius. In a short time, archaeologists started pursuing very different objectives: some were treasure-seekers hoping to plunder antiquities of the ancient world; others sought to prove theories about the origins of civilization or the historical accuracy of Homer or the Bible; still others focused on humans themselves, trying to determine the age of the species. The series also looks at how archaeology has been misused as an instrument of foreign policy and where the study is going in the future with new technologies and methods.

Part 4: Looking for One Beginning

The Fallacy of Diffusionism

When explorers examined the remains of an advanced Mexican culture, they concluded that a superior race must have come from elsewhere to build the palaces and pyramids: the theory of diffusionism was born. This program charts the 150-year search for civilization’s origins, which most 19th and early 20th century archaeologists believed to be a single source. Though questioned in the 1950s by Henri Frankfort, the diffusion theory persisted, as this program shows, and received interpretations ranging from Thor Heyerdahl’s idea that the Mexican pyramids were built by the Egyptians to notions that they were made by aliens—all under the premise that the ancient Mexicans could not have done it themselves.

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