Graham Hancock

Graham Bruce Hancock (born 2 August 1950) is a British author known for promoting pseudoscientific explanations of ancient civilisations and hypothetical lost lands. Hancock argues that an advanced society with spiritual technology thrived during the last Ice Age until comet impacts triggered the Younger Dryas about 12,900 years ago. He maintains that survivors of the disaster shared their knowledge with hunter-gatherer communities in regions such as ancient Egypt, Sumer, and Mesoamerica, sparking the earliest known civilisations.

Born in Edinburgh, Hancock studied sociology at Durham University before working as a journalist for several British newspapers and magazines. His first three books examined 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 to speculative accounts of human prehistory and ancient civilisations, publishing a dozen books that include Fingerprints of the Gods and Magicians of the Gods.

Scholars describe Hancock's investigations of archaeological evidence, myths, and historical documents as mimicking investigative journalism while lacking accuracy, consistency and impartiality. They label his work pseudoarchaeology and pseudohistory because they see it as biased toward preconceived conclusions that ignore context, misrepresent sources, cherry pick and omit evidence that contradicts his claims. Hancock's idea of an advanced ice age civilisation is seen as a variant of the hyperdiffusionism hypothesis that has been advocated by various authors since the 19th century.

The anthropologist Jeb Card characterises Hancock's writings as paranormal and views his proposed Ice Age civilisation as a modern mythic narrative focused on secret and spiritual knowledge, with Hancock contending that members of the ice age civilisation had psychic abilities and communicated with "powerful nonphysical beings" through psychedelic use.