So you think her advisors were easily fooled? Her task was to submit work worthy of a honors student. I’m assuming like all advisors hers checked her work. She had to go into the field, check records , conduct interviews and find corroborating evidence. She makes her thesis statement and backs it up.
I read this paper years ago and it seemed to be sound in method. In her preface, she made it clear she was disappointed in her results. In the years since, I’ve seen no study that overturns her conclusions.
These investigations are conducted in argument form. Merely making claims doesn’t cut it. Scholars are always making claims that some find is faked. (Look at the acrimonious nature of the James ossuary study) Merely making an accusation doesn’t mean anything unless the argument being made makes for a better explanation of the evidence.
No, not easily fooled, completely in favor of her conclusion; a priori — no one took a boat to the Americas before Columbus (or, if pressed and reminded of the L’anseax Meadows site, the Vikings), there is nothing to find.
“Look at the acrimonious nature of the James ossuary study” — yes, look at it, a rush to judgment against authenticity, and after lengthy LEGAL trials, the arguments against authenticity have been shown to be fabrications. This isn’t to say that this is the one, the only, James of the Bible, it is to say that there wasn’t any honesty on the side of those who immediately condemned it.
Here in the US the condemnation of out-of-place artifaces is built right in.