Here's a brief little crash course on archaeology https://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/earth/archae...

Here's a decent timeline of archaeology, see how it only goes back to 1780 https://www.ancient.eu/timeline/Archaeology/

There are some common historical inaccuracies in this article, like the fact we were taught Columbus discovered America as recently as the early 90's in my case (class of '13) despite them knowing damn well he didn't, Newton and gravity, how slavery is conveniently never mentioned in the North, etc https://www.thisisinsider.com/myths-lies-learned-in-school-w...

For Columbus in-particular the Oatmeal did a decent, but over the top, write up some years back http://theoatmeal.com/comics/columbus_day I was literally taught in the early 90's that they believed the earth was flat and that Columbus was brave enough to attempt to sail to India and that everyone thought he was crazy and would fall off the side of the world. This was in a public school, 20 something years ago. Yet we know there were colonies, that were eventually abandoned, and one was found in the 1960's in Newfoundland.

Hell look to certain countries in the middle-east and there are millions that flat out think the holocaust never happened, people the world around that think the moon landings were on a sound stage, people trying to currently change history with the 'Mandela Effect' (Berenstein or Berenstain Bears?).

The history of paleontology is a good rabbit hole too, start with the wiki https://www.wikiwand.com/en/History_of_paleontology

As far as people being blackballed, that's mostly just people coming forward after they allege it has happened or refusing to be part of something for fear of it although you can go read a lot about Zahi Hawass https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Zahi_Hawass and see where he was pretty damn nutty about creating his own narrative of Egyptian history for example

"Hawass has been accused of domineering behaviour, forbidding archaeologists to announce their own findings, and courting the media for his own gain after they were denied access to archaeological sites because, according to Hawass, they were too amateurish."

Zahi also strongly fought against any western archaeologists that wanted to question the timeline for the great pyramid and the Sphinx, flat out refusing their entry into the country in some instances and like when they drilled through the 'hidden door' in the great pyramid after jumping through all kinds of hoops and finding another door not farther up he flat out refused to let them drill through it.

I also recall Zahi having hieroglyphics at one site, that there are black and white photos of, covered in plaster but I can't seem to find what site it was. I distinctly remember seeing side by side photos, the period black and white next to a modern photo showing extensive plasterwork having been added, allegedly to 'protect' the site (bit weird, no other archaeologists seem to do that at ancient sites).

There are also anomalies like these

https://www.cnn.com/style/article/ancient-roman-coins-japan/...

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/2117117/myst...

https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Kensington_Runestone

https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Maine_penny

https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Beardmore_Relics

Etc. Out of place artifacts are interesting when not blatantly fakes https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Out-of-place_artifact