Is he correct? Is archaeology useless? https://www.youtube.c

I just watched this, and it's honestly one of the cringiest things I've seen of his. The worst part about it is that it seems like he things this is genuine insight. Here are my thoughts on it, as an archaeology grad student:

First, he never says that archaeology is useless (this is important, since I actually want to discuss his points and not shitpost). What he's actually talking about is how he ended up quitting it as a field because he had problems doing it. These mostly seem to revolve around his inability to remember important things and see the use in artifact analysis. It seems like he thought archaeology would revolve around looking at impressive things in museums and talking about them; actually having to learn about artifacts, study them, and learn how to infer past behavior bothered him, because he didn't want to do it. Or because it was too hard. But that's what archaeology is. It's all about learning minute details, and analyzing boring pieces of old garbage, and applying theory to them to make arguments about past behavior.

His comments about the job market are somewhat useful, but he was ultimately too pessimistic about it. Yes, work will depend on level of education, location, and willingness to travel, but that's true of most fields. I won't say it's a great job market, but it's not as impossible to find a job as he makes it seem. Mostly, he was just bitching about how he wouldn't be willing to do what's necessary to work in the field.

I think this might actually be his worst video yet. Holy shit.

>>2209909
Continued:

If anything good can come out of this video (I can see a bunch of his fans getting haughty about archaeology now), it's in discussing how people are uniformed about archaeology as a field. It's kind a problem because of how often you come across people like Skall, who had a seriously warped view of what archaeology is, and end up disappointed that archaeology can actually be a tough (including physically), rigorous field that isn't just about collecting treasure. I've encountered a bunch of undergrad who basically make the same arguments in their first exposure to archaeology outside TV. Every single one of his points sounds like a person who's just venting his frustration that archaeology was different and required more than he expected, and in general, he comes off uninformed and whiny.

Anyone on Youtube shouldn't be trusted. These 'I like swords, I am historian' Youtubers are the worst. They make Lindy look like a demi-God.

>>2209932
The worst part is when they use the disclaimer "I'm not a historian" to excuse them getting shit horribly wrong, then in their other videos they constantly rag on professional historians for coming to different conclusions than them.

>>2209936
I remember the bold Brit (I don't know his name as for some reason I don't watch his videos) making a 10 minute video about double-headed axes and how they existed. His evidence: "If I was a smith I could make one"

Complete crap. Stick to doing doing HEMA.

>>2209936
To be fair, when it comes to weapons, a lot of historians and archaeologists do come to stupid conclusions sometimes because they tend to lack actual experience with the things they talk about it. For example, I just came back from a major archaeological conference and saw a presentation about studying bullet holes that was absolutely cringeworthy because of how many shit the presenter got wrong (granted, it was a student, but their advisor should have caught most of that stuff).

Having direct experience with artifacts is useful and can lead to good conclusions. And intense hobbyist knowledge can also do that. It can also lead to a bunch of shit. In general, it's not hard to tell who'd pulling stuff out of their ass and who is making decent arguments (Skall vs. Matt Easton, for the easiest comparison). But in general, yes, getting full of themselves and immediately ignoring professional historians is a stupid thing too many of these youtubers do. And it's even worse when they get obviously out of their depth, like Skall in this video.

>Pottery the boring part
Pretty shit taste desu