I've recently fallen into the trap of Graham Hancock and others and have been slowly pulling myself out. His books captured my imagination in ways normal historical texts haven't. In my own research I have finally come to the conclusion that this realm of fringe research is fully pseudoarchaeology and it's making me think I have wasted a few years of my life.
I think it has been a waste because I find myself in a very non-critical mindset which I have to now correct. Sure, I know a lot more interesting tidbits, but the avenue I took was one of extreme speculation and leaps of logic. I feel trapped now and I think there are a lot of people like me out there whom have fallen down this rabbit hole and can't find anywhere to go. I think the way this interesting material has been presented has made me dumber by virtue of polluting my critical thinking, even though it came with cool and interesting true facts.
This said, what do you all recommend I read to help debunk the works of writers like Hancock? And how can I get back to a critical perspective on history?
Psuedoarchaeology is a compliment, there are much more accurate terms - miseducation or lying for instance.
It is harmful because most "psuedoarchaeology" completely misinterprets and misrepresents the evidence, the field and the actual academic discourse to fit simplistic political and often incorrect narratives that can leave people with fundamental misunderstandings about ancient societies. Graham Hancock's work is simply nonsense - the man writes about Masonic and Jewish conspiracies. The"true facts" that pepper his writing are tidbits taken from occasionally perusing academia - many of those interesting facts are also often from quite old works of scholarship.
The chief advice I have is simply to read the actual academics - people who have to meet a standard of work, address criticism of their ideas, people who have access to sources and artefacts, and who are familiar with the state of evidence on the bleeding edge of the field. Read the books that aren't conspiracies peppered with true facts - but are books about those facts, that analyse, question and expand upon them.
AskHistorians has a very decent booklist. I've found most university libraries will have their works and many of them are very accessible and informative. Often, when wanting to read more about a topic I haven't read much on - I've found the booklist has good recommendations for a place to start.