Fingerprints of the Gods

Fingerprints of the Gods

Cover of the first American edition
Author	Graham Hancock
Language	English
Subject	Pseudoarchaeology
Publisher	Crown Publishing Group
Publication date	1995
Media type	Print
ISBN	978-0-517-88729-5

Fingerprints of the Gods: The Evidence of Earth's Lost Civilization is a 1995 pseudoarchaeology ^{[1] [2]} book by British writer Graham Hancock. Hancock claims that an advanced civilization lived on Antarctica during the last ice age before the continent shifted south to its current position. He argues that survivors carried their knowledge to cultures around the world, which he says produced the earliest known civilizations. The book promotes a form of hyperdiffusionism that draws heavily on the work of Ignatius L. Donnelly and Charles Hapgood. ^[3] Hancock later extended the narrative in Magicians of the Gods . ^[4]

Thesis

The Mesoamerican deity Quetzalcoatl as depicted in the Codex Magliabechiano

Hancock argues that a civilization based on Antarctica, which he says once lay farther from the South Pole, left "fingerprints" in Ancient Egypt and in American cultures such as the Olmec, Aztec and Maya. He cites creation myths that describe deities including Osiris and Thoth in Egypt, Quetzalcoatl in Mesoamerica and Viracocha in the Andes. He also references archaeological sites such as Tiwanaku in Bolivia. UNESCO dates Tiwanaku's peak between 400 and 900 AD, ^[5] yet Hancock assigns the city to a far earlier era. Tiwanaku appears in other works of "alternative archaeology" including Von Däniken's Chariots of the Gods? . ^[6] Von Däniken presents the complex as evidence for extraterrestrials, whereas Hancock rejects "ancient astronauts" explanations ^[3] and instead locates the source civilization in Atlantis.

Hancock dates a major pole shift to 10,450 BC. He states that Antarctica lay farther from the South Pole before this event and moved to its current position afterward. The pole-shift claim relies on Charles Hapgood's theory of Earth crustal displacement. ^[7] Hapgood linked the idea to Atlantis and suggested that crustal displacement destroyed the mythical land. The geological community rejects his model in favour of plate tectonics, yet Rand and Rose Flem-Ath adopted it in When the Sky Fell: in Search of Atlantis (1995/2009), expanding on Hapgood's argument and placing Atlantis in Antarctica. ^[8]

Reception

Scholars and scientists describe the book's proposals as pseudoscience and pseudoarchaeology. ^{[9] [10]}

Canadian author Heather Pringle places Fingerprints within a pseudoscientific lineage that stretches from the writings of H. S. Bellamy and Denis Saurat to Heinrich Himmler's racial research institute, the Ahnenerbe , and the theories of Nazi archaeologist Edmund Kiss. ^{[11] [12]} She highlights the book's "wild speculations" about the origins of Tiwanaku and calls Hancock a "fabulist". ^[6]

Kenneth Feder likens the book to a "Victorian travelogue" written by an author without archaeological training. He notes that Hancock credits a mysterious white people for the accomplishments of the ancient civilizations he visits and that Hancock describes the Maya as "jungle-dwelling Indians" incapable of devising a sophisticated calendar. Feder considers Hancock's synthesis of fringe writers such as Ignatius Donnelly, Charles Hapgood, Arthur Posnansky, Robert Bauval and Anthony West "very hard to swallow, indeed." ^[13]

Fingerprints of the Gods has been translated into 27 languages and is estimated to have sold five million copies worldwide. ^[14]

Hancock responded to his critics with a 2001 edition titled Fingerprints of the Gods: The Quest Continues, which added a new introduction and appendices. Mikey Brass, reviewing in Skeptical Inquirer, remarked that Hancock "didn't change a word" of the original text and continued to defend the disputed claims. The updated edition left unanswered the scientific evidence that challenged his statements about "Earth Crustal Displacement" and the "frozen mammoths". ^[15]

Influence

Fingerprints of the Gods inspired the 2009 disaster film 2012 . ^[16] In a November 2009 interview with the London magazine Time Out, director Roland Emmerich said, "I always wanted to do a biblical flood movie, but I never felt I had the hook. I first read about the Earth's crust displacement theory in Graham Hancock's Fingerprints of the Gods." ^[17]

Emmerich and co-writer Harald Kloser also credit the book in the extras for the Blu-ray 10,000 BC . ^[18]

References

1. Fagan 2006, pp. xvi.
2. Killgrove, Kristina (3 September 2015). "What Archaeologists Really Think About Ancient Aliens, Lost Colonies, And Fingerprints Of The Gods". Forbes.
3. Moss, Stephen (6 February 2002). "Castles in the sea". The Guardian . Retrieved 28 November 2009.
4. "Religion, Spirituality and Faith Books - Best Sellers - Books - Dec. 13, 2015 - the New York Times". The New York Times.
5. Tiwanaku: Spiritual and Political Centre of the Tiwanaku Culture UNESCO.
6. Pringle, Heather, The Master Plan: Himmler's Scholars and the Holocaust (2006), Fourth Estate, London: p.310
7. Hapgood, Charles Hutchins. Earth's Shifting Crust: A Key to Some Basic Problems of Earth Science (Pantheon Books, 1958, foreword by Albert Einstein)
8. "WHEN THE SKY FELL". Kirkus Reviews. 1995. Retrieved 7 October 2025.
9. Fagan, Garrett G. Archaeological Fantasies:How Pseudoarchaeology Misrepresents the Past and Misleads the Public Routledge 6 January 2006 ISBN   978-0-415-30593-8 p. 28
10. Nunn, Patrick D. Vanished Islands and Hidden Continents of the Pacific University of Hawaii Press (15 Aug 2008) ISBN   978-0-8248-3219-3 p. 128
11. Pringle, Heather (2006). The Master Plan: Himmler's Scholars and the Holocaust. London: Fourth Estate. p. 310. ISBN   9780007148127.
12. Pringle, Heather (5 June 2009). "A Chilling Fantasy at Tiwanaku". Archaeology Magazine (Archaeological Institute of America). Retrieved 7 October 2025.
13. Feder, Kenneth (July 2015). "Fingerprints of the Gods: The Evidence of Earth's Lost Civilization. Graham Hancock. 1995. Three Rivers Press, New York. 592 pp. $19.95 (paperback), ISBN: 978-0-517-88729-5" . American Antiquity. 80 (3): 617–618. doi:10.7183/0002-7316.80.3.615. S2CID   164241758 – via Cambridge.org.
14. "Graham Hancock Biography". GrahamHancock.com. Retrieved 26 November 2009.
15. Brass, Mikey (2002). "Tracing Graham Hancock's Shifting Cataclysm". Skeptical Inquirer. 26 (4): 45–49.
16. "2012 (2009) – Credit List" (PDF). chicagoscifi.com. Archived from the original (PDF) on 15 February 2010. Retrieved 25 November 2009.
17. Jenkins, David (16 November 2009). "Roland Emmerich's guide to disaster movies". Time Out . Archived from the original on 16 November 2009. Retrieved 25 November 2009.
18. (in Italian)Tambone, Alessio (15 September 2008). "Versione Stampabile _ Blu-ray 10.000 AC". AV Magazine (in Italian). Retrieved 28 July 2013.

Works cited

• Fagan, Garrett G. (2006). Archaeological Fantasies: How Pseudoarchaeology Misrepresents the Past and Misleads the Public. Psychology Press. ISBN   978-0-415-30592-1.

Further reading

• Brass, M. (2002). "Tracing Graham Hancock's Shifting Cataclysm". Skeptical Inquirer . 26 (4): 45–49. Archived from the original on 26 April 2010.
• Edlin, D. (n.d.). "The Gentle Art of Myth Management". In the Hall of Ma’at. Retrieved 14 November 2022.
• Fagan, G. (n.d.). "Tiwanaku: Alternative History in Action". In the Hall of Ma’at. Retrieved 14 November 2022.
• Fagan, G. (n.d.). "An Answer to Graham Hancock". In the Hall of Ma’at. Retrieved 14 November 2022.
• Hancock, Graham (n.d.). "Fingerprints of the Gods - Evidence of Earth's Lost Civilization (1995)". GrahamHancock.com. Retrieved 14 November 2022.
• Heinrich, P. (n.d.). "Wild Side of Geoarchaeology". In the Hall of Ma’at. Retrieved 14 November 2022. Comments on Hancock's views of geology presented in a series of articles.
• Malek, J. (1996). "Fingerprints of the Gods: A Review". Discussions in Egyptology. 34: 135–142. Retrieved 14 November 2022– via In the Hall of Ma’at.