Patrick Tierney

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Patrick Tierney is an investigative journalist who works as a volunteer to the UCIS at the University of Pittsburgh.

In 2000, Tierney published Darkness in El Dorado, which accused geneticist James Neel and anthropologist Napoleon Chagnon of exacerbating a measles epidemic among the Yanomamo people, among other damning allegations. This work was nominated for a National Book Award, and was well-reviewed (see [1]).

Tierney's charges were investigated by researchers at the University of California at Santa Barbara. Per a preliminary report issued in 2001 [2], the investigators concluded it was not Chagnon who committed any wrongdoing, but Tierney, who fraudulently altered evidence to support a story he either at best imagined or at worst manufactured. A separate investigation by the American Anthropological Association joined Tierney in questioning the conduct of Neel and Chagnon; however, the association rescinded its report in 2005, stating that the "investigation did not follow basic principles of fairness and due process for the accused" (see [3]).

A previous book by Tierney, The Highest Altar: Unveiling the Mystery of Human Sacrifice (1989), documents ritual human sacrifice in the high Andes mountains of Peru, Chile, Bolivia and Argentina. The first third of the book deals with mummified sacrificial victims of the Incas buried at high altitudes. One of his trips to the summit of Mt. Veladero was with Johan Reinhard, the discoverer of the Ice Maiden. The second part of the book deals with possible contemporary human sacrifices among the modern Mapuche of Southern Chile, specifically during the devastating earthquake and tsunami of 1960. The third section of the book discusses ritual human sacrificial overtones in other religions, mainly that of the middle east and the Abrahamic religions. This portion of the book draws heavily on the work of Hyam Maccoby.