His certainty in controversial interpretations often served only to enrage Good Archaeologists, making reasoned debate impossible.įell’s first foray into epigraphy was a study of Polynesian petroglyphs published in 1940, but it was his book America BC (1976) that really propelled him into popular consciousness. However, his pronouncements were often uncompromising, lacking the circumspection and caution that is common in Good Archaeologists’ writings. His training in marine biology meant that he was able to bring what he hoped was a measure of objectivity to controversial areas. Neither assessment is entirely fair.įirstly, Barry Fell was a scientist. He was an accomplished and respected marine biologist from Harvard whose interest in epigraphy (inscriptions) has led him to be described by his followers as “ the greatest linguist of the twentieth century” and by sceptics as “ a self-promoting pseudo-scientist who threatened to undo more than a century of careful progress in archaeological and anthropological research”. Howard Barraclough Fell (1917-1994), better known as Barry Fell, has been enormously influential in the United States.
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May 2023
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