Considering that it wasn't until the last 15 years or so when those in "Academia" finally started letting go of the long-since discredited "Clovis First" theory

Considering that it wasn't until the last 15 years or so when those in "Academia" finally started letting go of the long-since discredited "Clovis First" theory, people have have reason to be skeptical. As some other posts have pointed out, the fact is that much of our understanding of the distant past is speculation. We have fragments of history that archeologists are left to make their best guesses about. There are many different guesses and narratives about human pre-history that can be spun from the same set of these fragments that are all equally plausible. That isn't to say that Hancock doesn't make guesses and assertions that are unsupported (he does), but it is to say that the guesses and assertions made by academics are no more credibly or valid than guesses and assertions made by anyone who else who has a firm grasp of the available evidence and good reasoning skills.