In my youth, I devoured popular accounts of archaeological discoveries by German authors such as Philipp Vandenberg and German Hafner. Continuing a genre of best-selling archaeological nonfiction pioneered by C. W. Ceram and Rudolf Pörtner, these authors excelled in describing episodes of the history of archaeology, with particular emphasis on the ancient Mediterranean and the application of scientific analyses during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Jeb Card's volume reminded me of that genre. Despite the title, the book contains a series of somewhat unconnected accounts of the history of archaeology and archaeological interpretation since the nineteenth century. What is new compared with the titles I recalled are two aspects in particular. First, the geographical perspective is much broader, and a significant emphasis lies on the Americas. In addition to familiar references to the European megaliths, the Great Sphinx of Giza, Schliemann, hieroglyphic inscriptions, and prehistoric Wiltshire, we also learn about changing perceptions of sites and artifacts of the Maya, the Aztecs, Tiwanaku, and the lost continent of Mu, among many other examples. Second, the issues discussed are also significantly broader, in parts adapted to the interests of twenty-first-century audiences. Nazi archaeology, Bigfoot, Atlantis, and the New Age at Glastonbury are natural reference points, as are UFOs and extraterrestrials, the occult, and current postcolonial sensibilities. Much space is devoted to discussions of the past role of archaeologists as spies and their affinity to fictional detectives. An entire chapter discusses the significance of H. P. Lovecraft's short story “The Call of Cthulhu.” None of this has much to do with ghosts or spookiness, although it touches on a variety of myths and intriguing details about the history of archaeologists that have possibly been marginalized in the most common textbooks of archaeology.

Claims of the volume to novel academic insight have to be modest. Most of the content may have been better placed in a nonfiction trade paperback carrying the same conspicuous title but without the more than 100 pages of notes and references. Having said that, the first chapter offers a more ambitious academic agenda in outlining “The Foundations of Spooky Archaeology.” These foundations turn out to be somewhat shallow. Card contrasts archaeology as “a field of science and scholarship” with the way “most people” have approached the archaeological record in terms of fairies, mythic ancestors, aliens, and lost races, as reflected in pop culture and folk archaeology (pp. 1–2). Citing that almost half of Americans believe that ancient advanced civilizations such as Atlantis existed (with another third being undecided), Card promises to excavate archaeology, the occult practices of archaeologists, and “the inherently spooky nature of the material past” (p. 2). What follows, however, is little but a compilation of various details of the intellectual history of archaeology. Card's initial claim that the archaeological record and its practice are inherently mysterious and supernatural is never fully developed, beyond the insight that the roots of many popular myths and tropes of archaeology derive from archaeology itself and that we ignore them at our peril. How myth—and spookiness—relate to the current practices of archaeologists is not investigated. The final chapter, fleshing out the subtitle of the book, contrasts mainstream scientific archaeology with “alternative archaeology,” which Card argues revives some very dubious Victorian ideas about the past and other cultures.

Among the foundations of spooky archaeology is also the contrast between chronological time that focuses on chosen episodes of the past and mythic time that provides a profound past for the present. Although that should open up a discussion about what kind of mythic time suits our age and the role of archaeology in bringing it about, Card does not go beyond a postcolonial critique of the way the pasts of indigenous, colonized populations have been subsumed under atemporal mythical concepts. The social power that lies in profound myths for the present is ignored, as are potent mythical concepts of the past that commonly occur outside the scientific paradigm, predating and competing with professional archaeology, even outside of the Victorian empire.

Spooky Archaeology excels in presenting many intriguing aspects and lesser-known details of the history of archaeology and archaeological interpretation. Yet the book sits oddly between different genres: it neither provides a fully developed academic analysis nor a sufficiently lighthearted exploration suitable for airport bookshops.