Dennis Stanford

{{Short description|American archaeologist (1943–2019)}}

{{Infobox person

|name=Dennis Stanford

|birth_name=Dennis J. Stanford

|birth_date={{birth date|1943|05|13}}

|birth_place=Cherokee, Iowa, United States

|death_date={{death date and age|2019|04|24|1943|05|13}}

|death_place=Georgetown, Washington D.C., United States

|occupation=Archaeologist and Museum Curator

}}

Dennis J. Stanford (13 May 1943 in Cherokee, Iowa{{cite web|title="Dennis Joe Stanford." American Men & Women of Science|url=http://0-ic.galegroup.com.library.sl.nsw.gov.au/ic/bic1/ReferenceDetailsPage/ReferenceDetailsWindow?displayGroupName=Reference&disableHighlighting=false&prodId=BIC1&action=e&windowstate=normal&catId=&documentId=GALE%7CK3099140014&mode=view&userGroupName=slnsw_public&jsid=e3bc3bc86a3c189d2e113d04887ffe2c|publisher=Gale Biography In Context. Web|accessdate=10 July 2011|archive-url=https://archive.today/20120701172203/http://0-ic.galegroup.com.library.sl.nsw.gov.au/ic/bic1/ReferenceDetailsPage/ReferenceDetailsWindow?displayGroupName=Reference&disableHighlighting=false&prodId=BIC1&action=e&windowstate=normal&catId=&documentId=GALE%7CK3099140014&mode=view&userGroupName=slnsw_public&jsid=e3bc3bc86a3c189d2e113d04887ffe2c|archive-date=1 July 2012|url-status=dead}} – 24 April 2019{{Cite web|url=https://www.instagram.com/p/BwrSj4-HW3J/ |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/iarchive/instagram/smithsoniannmnh/2029797688251084233 |archive-date=2021-12-25 |url-access=registration|title=Smithsonian's NMNH on Instagram: "We mourn the loss of our beloved friend and colleague, Dennis Stanford, Curator of North American Archaeology and Director of the…"|website=Instagram|language=en|access-date=2019-04-24}}{{cbignore}}) was an archaeologist and Director of the Paleoindian/Paleoecology Program at the National Museum of Natural History at the Smithsonian Institution.{{cite news|last=Wilford|first=John Noble|title=A 10,000-Year-Old Site Yields Trove of Data in Florida|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1996/11/11/us/a-10000-year-old-site-yields-trove-of-data-in-florida.html|accessdate=10 July 2011|newspaper=New York Times|date=11 November 1996}}

Along with Professor Bruce Bradley, Stanford was known for investigating the Solutrean hypothesis, which contends that stone tool technology of the Solutrean culture in prehistoric northern Spain and Portugal may have influenced the development of later Clovis tool-making culture in the Americas by way of an earlier trans-atlantic maritime travel along a sea ice shelf to North America during the Last Glacial Maximum. In 2012, they published details concerning their hypothesis in Across Atlantic Ice: The Origin of America's Clovis Culture.