specifically highlighting the relevance of indigenous peoples of the past and present. In 1983, Reichel-Dolmatoff was one of the founding members of the Third World Academy of Sciences (TWAS), which was created and headed by dr. Abdus Salam (Nobel Prize in Physics) with renowned scientists of the Third World who sought to focus differently on the issues of science and technology for the interests of the developing countries themselves. International recognition While living in Colombia for over half a century, Reichel-Dolmatoff provided his professional services to the national and departmental governments, and as university professor, researcher and author to public and private universities. In 1945 he founded in Santa Marta the Instituto Ethnologico Nacional del Magdalena and in the early 1950s he became professor of Medical Anthropology at the University of Cartagena. He occupied, amongst other positions, those of researcher and lecturer of the Instituto Etnologico Nacional and the Colombian Institute of Anthropology and he was Chair and professor of the Department of Anthropology of the Universidad de los Andes. He was visiting professor of the National Museum of Ethnology in Japan. Reichel-Dolmatoff participated in academic congresses and seminars and wrote conference papers in universities and international or national academic events in South America, North America and Central America as well as in Europe, Japan. In the field of archaeology, Reichel-Dolmatoff helped define the early archeological evidence of the Formative stage in Colombia, based on sites excavated which provided the then most ancient site in all the Americas where pottery had originated over 6,000 years ago, and this research was tied also to new interpretations of the meaning and connections of the cultural evolution of Colombia with other regions of the Americas. Reichel-Dolmatoff researched origins of early chiefdoms and explained the millenarian evolution of Amerindian cultures and their links to contemporary indigenous groups. His excavations focused mainly on living spaces and garbage heaps, where the archaeologist avoided exploring or excavating monumental sculptures, monumental architecture and indigenous burial sites. In the field of anthropology, Reichel-Dolmatoff focused on investigating and celebrating Colombia's ethnic and cultural diversity and especially of indigenous peoples. The scope and extent of his work and dedication to understanding, acknowledging and disseminating the importance and value of Colombia's contemporary indigenous peoples was significant. At a conference in 1987, Reichel-Dolmatoff spoke the following words: "Today I must acknowledge that since the beginning of the 1940s, it has been for me