Research summary
Archaeologists have long believed that the first people arrived in North America at the end of the last ice age (the Pleistocene), 11,500 to 12,000 years ago. But Indigenous archaeologist Dr. Paulette Steeves, Canada Research Chair in Indigenous History Healing and Reconciliation, has been gathering evidence that indicates they arrived earlier than that.
Steeves is reclaiming and rewriting histories of the Indigenous Peoples of the Americas and is the only archaeologist in the world to have created a comprehensive database of Pleistocene-age archaeology sites in North and South America. She and her research team are gathering evidence from oral traditions, archaeological sites, linguistics, paleo-environmental studies and genetics to support their assertion that humans were present in the Americas earlier than once believed. Steeves’ work is creating a counter-discourse to the Western ideologies that prevail in Indigenous histories, which have been written from a Eurocentric perspective.