Dan Richards
Independent researcher and host of the YouTube channel DeDunking the Past, focused on lost civilizations and alternative history
Dan Richards (Independent researcher and host of the YouTube channel DeDunking the Past, focused on lost civilizations and alternative history) has appeared as a guest on 1 episode in TMT. Topics they speak about most include Artificial cranial deformation, Paracas culture, Archaeology as a science.
In their words
Positions and remarks grouped by topic, each with the exact quote and where it was said.
Artificial cranial deformation
Richards argues that the 3,000 burials at Mount Coffin must have contained elongated skulls because burial there required nobility, which required skull modification.
“To be buried here, you had to be a noble. To be a noble, your skull had to be modified”
The Joe Rogan Experience: #2563 - Dan Richards (Oct 8, 2026) · Listen from 2:16:46
Richards alleges that elongated skulls are currently vanishing from museum collections.
“These skulls are disappearing off the shelves in the museums right now”
The Joe Rogan Experience: #2563 - Dan Richards (Oct 8, 2026) · Listen from 29:01
Richards claims that most artificially elongated skulls in recorded history come from Washington State.
“The majority of the elongated skulls in recorded history are from Washington State”
The Joe Rogan Experience: #2563 - Dan Richards (Oct 8, 2026) · Listen from 0:34
Paracas culture
Richards states that Inca trephination achieved survival rates around 80 percent, roughly double American Civil War surgeons.
“the Inca were still doing those trephinations in the skull so well that they were up to an 80% survival rate”
The Joe Rogan Experience: #2563 - Dan Richards (Oct 8, 2026) · Listen from 1:55:47
Richards says Rockefeller paid about $3,000 for four Paracas grave bundles whose current whereabouts are undocumented.
“he dropped three grand and walked back with four bundles now according to that's it”
The Joe Rogan Experience: #2563 - Dan Richards (Oct 8, 2026) · Listen from 29:14
Richards argues that South American cultures deliberately bred different bloodlines together.
“I honestly believe that they were actively breeding different bloodlines together in South America”
The Joe Rogan Experience: #2563 - Dan Richards (Oct 8, 2026) · Listen from 8:59
Other remarks
Richards says he treats ancient aliens as the least likely explanation, applying Occam's razor.
“the aliens are always the last thing I want to posit because it's just the most unlikely”
The Joe Rogan Experience: #2563 - Dan Richards (Oct 8, 2026) · Listen from 2:06:41
Richards argues that Zahi Hawass deliberately plays a villain role to stimulate tourism.
“I did a video a while back about Zahi Hawass being a heel, like a wrestling heel”
The Joe Rogan Experience: #2563 - Dan Richards (Oct 8, 2026) · Listen from 1:29:47
Archaeology as a science
Richards says the Society for American Archaeology was founded to foster relations between amateurs and professionals, a goal he says it now neglects.
“their intention was to cultivate a better relationship between interested amateurs and professional archaeologists”
The Joe Rogan Experience: #2563 - Dan Richards (Oct 8, 2026) · Listen from 1:22:12
Richards contends that archaeology is not a science and functions more like religion because finds cannot be replicated.
“Archeology is not a fucking science, Joe. Not even close. It functions like a science like religion does”
The Joe Rogan Experience: #2563 - Dan Richards (Oct 8, 2026) · Listen from 1:05:11
COVID-19 pandemic response
Richards rejects the label science denier, describing himself as a gatekeeper of the scientific method.
“I get called a science denier a lot. Fuck that. I'm a science gatekeeper”
The Joe Rogan Experience: #2563 - Dan Richards (Oct 8, 2026) · Listen from 12:12
Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument
Richards says redactions in Gila Cliff Dwellings archaeology reports are most plausibly explained by artifacts being sold.
“Maybe they're selling on the black market would be the most obvious explanation, like the most mundane”
The Joe Rogan Experience: #2563 - Dan Richards (Oct 8, 2026) · Listen from 1:59:42
Baghdad Battery
Richards theorizes that the Baghdad Battery was used to separate metals from mine runoff rather than to generate electricity.
“I don't think it was for electricity. I think it was to separate metal”
The Joe Rogan Experience: #2563 - Dan Richards (Oct 8, 2026) · Listen from 1:34:45
Giant skeleton claims
Richards argues that anthropologist Aleš Hrdlička debunked giant bones because of a racial-superiority agenda.
“This guy's got a vested interest in proving that white people are superior and that he believes that you prove this by the skeletons”
The Joe Rogan Experience: #2563 - Dan Richards (Oct 8, 2026) · Listen from 59:52
Chiari malformation
Richards proposes that skull elongation began as a generational response to headaches from Chiari-type malformations caused by archaic human admixture.
“Or you might elongate the back of the skull every generation so that your kids don't have the same fucking headaches grandpa did”
The Joe Rogan Experience: #2563 - Dan Richards (Oct 8, 2026) · Listen from 24:52
Appearances
#2563 - Dan RichardsThe Joe Rogan Experience · Oct 8, 2026 · 2 h 55 min
Joe Rogan and independent researcher Dan Richards discuss elongated skulls, Neanderthal and Denisovan interbreeding, Paracas, alleged archaeological cover-ups, and whether archaeology is a science.
Often appears with
- Joe Rogan · 1 shared episode