This volume examines in depth the peopling of the Western Hemisphere from an Indigenous point of view. The author, Paulette F.C. Steeves, is Cree and Metis. She grew up in British Columbia and earned her Ph.D. from SUNY-Binghamton. In this thought-provoking treatise, she challenges conventional archaeological beliefs that Native Americans first arrived in the Americas no more than 15,000 years ago and totally rejects the Clovis-first theory. Instead she makes a case for a much earlier migration 60,000 years ago, and likely more than 100,000 years ago.
She offers a stinging critique of Euroamerican archaeology as being colonialist and racist, saying it ignores Indigenous narratives of movement and ways of knowing, and consequently is blind to evidence of earlier migrations. Instead she relies on Indigenous oral traditions, archaeological evidence, and different ways of doing archaeology. She has compiled an impressive database of Paleolithic sites to buttress her case.
This volume challenges conventional archaeological wisdom from a number of perspectives and is certain to stimulate much discussion not only about the peopling of the Americas, but also the ethnocentrism of modern archaeology.
