Graham Hancock

Graham Bruce Hancock (born 2 August 1950) is a British writer who promotes pseudoscientific ideas about ancient civilizations and hypothetical lost lands. Hancock proposes that an advanced civilization with spiritual technology existed during the last Ice Age until it was destroyed following comet impacts around 12,900 years ago, at the onset of the Younger Dryas. He speculates that survivors of this cataclysm passed on their knowledge to primitive hunter-gatherers around the world, giving rise to all the earliest known civilizations (such as ancient Egypt, Sumeria, and Mesoamerica).

Born in Edinburgh, Hancock studied sociology at Durham University before working as a journalist, writing for a number of British newspapers and magazines. His first three books dealt with international development, including ''Lords of Poverty'' (1989), a well-received critique of corruption in the aid system. Beginning with ''The Sign and the Seal'' in 1992, he shifted focus to speculative accounts of human prehistory and ancient civilizations, on which he has written a dozen books, most notably ''Fingerprints of the Gods'' and ''Magicians of the Gods''.

Experts have described Hancock's investigations of archaeological evidence, myths and historical documents as superficially resembling investigative journalism, but lacking in accuracy, consistency and impartiality. They define his work as pseudoarchaeology and pseudohistory because they consider it to be biased towards preconceived conclusions by ignoring context, misrepresenting sources, cherry picking, and withholding critical counter-evidence. Anthropologist Jeb Card has described Hancock's writings as being paranormal in nature, and his idea of an Ice age civilization as a modern mythological narrative that due to its emphasis on alleged secret and spiritual knowledge (including psychic abilities and communing with souls and "powerful nonphysical beings" via the use of psychedelics), is incompatible with the archaeological scientific method. Hancock portrays himself as a culture hero who fights the "dogmatism" of academics, presenting his work as more valid than professional archaeology and as "a path to truly understanding reality and the spiritual elements denied by materialist science", though he often cites science in support of his ideas. He has not submitted his writings for scholarly peer review and they have not been published in academic journals.

He has also written two fantasy novels and in 2013 delivered a controversial TEDx talk promoting the use of the psychoactive drink ayahuasca. His ideas have been the subject of several films, as well as the Netflix series ''Ancient Apocalypse'' (2022), Hancock makes regular appearances on the podcast ''The Joe Rogan Experience'' to discuss his work. Provided by Wikipedia