Theory

Big Effects, Big Causes

Monumental achievements — the pyramids, Nazca, Stonehenge — routinely attract explanations that displace human agency onto hidden or external causes, despite documented evidence that ordinary people built them. This paper diagnoses why, drawing on proportionality bias, institutional distrust, and the psychology of pseudoarchaeology.

AuthorAnthony Vondoom
Date2026
SeriesThe Deep Symbolic Systems Model (DSSM) Corpus
Keywordspseudoarchaeology; proportionality bias; monumental architecture; ancient astronaut hypothesis; DSSM; cognitive archaeology; Anthony Vondoom
LicenseCC BY 4.0
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