Tom Dillehay's Monteverde excavation shattered the Clovis First model, putting the first Americans thousands of years earlier. The backlash was brutal: death threats, people contacting universities to question his PhD, and even claims to the Chilean government that he was a CIA plant. Yet the National Science Foundation kept funding his work. Incredible resolve in the face of such hostility.
Clovis First debate: Tom Dillah and the Monteverde discovery challenged establishment archaeology
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📍 Monteverde🌍 Show on the globe
Key facts
- Tom Dillah was the archaeologist responsible for the Monteverde discovery that overturned the Clovis First model.
- A.H. Als Hydraa was a Smithsonian archaeologist in the 1920s-1930s who opposed any idea of people in the Americas before ~3,000 years ago.
- Dillah received death threats and had people contact his universities claiming his PhD was fraudulent.
- People contacted the Chilean government claiming Dillah was a CIA plant because Chilean dictator Pinochet was involved.
- Dillah received funding from the National Science Foundation for Monteverde research even amid criticism.
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