Frank C. Hibben

As a professor at the University of New Mexico (UNM) and writer of popular books and articles, he inspired many people to study archaeology.

[1] Correspondence in Nature has underscored that Hibben’s legacy should not be defined by accusations, as controversy is common in research and differs from misconduct.

While a graduate student, Hibben was put in charge of the university's archaeology collections (the core of what became the Maxwell Museum of Anthropology).

[7] The 25,000 year age for the "Sandia Man" deposits was a best guess based on the strata in the cave, and was later called into question, in part through radiocarbon dating.

Instead, some researchers believe that artifacts were "salted" (fraudulently placed) in the cave deposits to support the notion of the "Sandia Man" occupation.

[10] In 2017, the Maxwell Museum restored the pole, and at the request of the Tlowitsis Nation, paid for a replica to be created and erected in British Columbia.

In 1943, Hibben described a visit to Chinitna Bay on the west side of Cook Inlet in Alaska, where he reported finding Yuma-like projectile points like those found at the Clovis Site in New Mexico and a projectile point similar to those produced by the Folsom culture, who lived on the High Plains and adjacent regions 10,000 years ago.

A later investigation of the geology and geoarchaeology of Chinitna Bay using personal notes, photographs, and directions personally supply by Hibben successfully relocated the locations and strata from which the mammoth bones, Yuma-like projectile points, and projectile point "possibly affiliated with, Folsom" were reported.

They found that the strata in which Hibben reported finding Folsom- and Yuma-like projectile points and mammoths bones all accumulated during the Late Holocene in "a muddy, intertidal environment".