There is nothing unique about Canada’s education system that inoculates its population from anti-intellectualism. At home and abroad, funding is being gutted in the name of cost savings and the health of millions is being influenced by anti-science populism rather than data-driven expertise. Archaeology is not immune to these problems. As Humanities and social sciences programs across the world are being decimated, heritage conservation and cultural resource management are reaching a crisis point where there is more archaeology required than there are archaeologists to do it. So, what are archaeologists doing to combat the growth of anti-intellectualism?

The continuing popularity of pseudoarchaeological television and streaming programmes, along with social media apps full of pseudoscientific videos, suggests a public interest and demand for archaeology. However, uncontested by genuine archaeological research, these media merely serve to contribute to anti-intellectualism, spreading objectively and demonstrably false ideas as plausible if not probable by conflating “just asking questions” with rigorous scientific inquiry. Additionally, as generative AI art becomes more sophisticated, the effort required to produce pseudoarchaeological content is becoming increasingly trivial and risks dominating the popular narrative of human history, feeding into denialism, erasure, and anti-science rhetoric.

Archaeology requires researching, writing, citing, and quality presentation. In other words, it takes time, a luxury unavailable to many of those best positioned to share their expertise. This, and the constant need for online promotion and engagement, make it unfortunate, if not unsurprising, that many professional archaeologists choose to avoid public engagement through popular media.

However, the problems of anti-intellectualism are not going away on their own. This session invites papers that examine how archaeologists are sharing archaeology. Where are we succeeding and how can we overcome obstacles? How can we collectively, as a community and discipline, support one another to combat pseudoarchaeology, anti-intellectualism, denialism, and erasure?