page_title: Kenneth Feder
section_title: Early life
hierarchical_section_title: Kenneth Feder / Early life
caption_attribution_description: English: Archaeologist Ken Feder recovering the tip of a stone spearpoint at a 1,000-year-old archaeological site in West Simsbury, Connecticut.
context_page_description: Kenneth L. "Kenny" Feder is a professor of archaeology at Central Connecticut State University and the author of several books on archaeology and criticism of pseudoarchaeology such as Frauds, Myths, and Mysteries: Science and Pseudoscience in Archaeology. His book Encyclopedia of Dubious Archaeology: From Atlantis to the Walam Olum was published in 2010. His newest book Ancient America: Fifty Archaeological Sites to See for Yourself was published in 2017. He is the founder and director of the Farmington River Archaeological Project.
context_section_description: Feder was very interested in cryptozoology and ancient astronauts as a teenager, when a book called Morning of the Magicians about extraterrestrial aliens turned him on to what he describes as the nonsense in archaeology. "Essentially it was Erich von Däniken before Erich von Däniken", referring to the popular author and popularizer of ancient astronaut theories.  "I knew it was crap and it got me really pissed off," Feder has stated, adding that researching the claims that were made grew his interest. According to Feder, after becoming a professor, he asked his students what they wanted to learn in the class. They expressed interest in the same things he was interested in as a teen, but he couldn't find a book that dealt with answers to these pseudoscience topics, which led to the writing of his first book, Frauds, Myths, and Mysteries: Science and Pseudoscience in Archaeology.
caption: Ken Feder recovering the tip of a stone spearpoint at a 1,000-year-old archaeological site in West Simsbury, Connecticut.
exif: {"Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "Canon EOS DIGITAL REBEL", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "180", "Image YResolution": "180", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image DateTime": "2005:06:27 10:25:56", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image ExifOffset": "196", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "180", "Thumbnail YResolution": "180", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "2548", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "10240", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/250", "EXIF FNumber": "9", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "100", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2005:06:27 10:25:56", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2005:06:27 10:25:56", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "3", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "261023/32768", "EXIF ApertureValue": "1623/256", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "118447/32768", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire", "EXIF FocalLength": "18", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "3072", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2048", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "Interoperability RelatedImageWidth": "3072", "Interoperability RelatedImageLength": "2048", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "2366", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "768000/223", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "409600/119", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "2", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard"}