Racism is 'embedded in American archaeology': Q&A with Cree-Métis archaeologist Paulette Steeves

CBC Docs ·  February 9, 2023

Archaeologist Paulette Steeves is working to rewrite global human history for Indigenous people | Walking with Ancients 

Recently discovered evidence is changing the story of when humans arrived in the Americas.  Steeves isn’t surprised: she believes Indigenous people have been here for more than 100,000 years.

Most archaeologists in North America have spent the last several decades believing that humans arrived in the Americas around 12,000 - 14,000 years ago by crossing the Bering Land Bridge from Siberia to Alaska.

But Paulette Steeves isn't most archaeologists. 

Steeves is a professor at Algoma University and Canada Research Chair in Indigenous History, Healing and Reconciliation, and her work focuses on the Pleistocene history of the Western Hemisphere. 

She believes that Indigenous people were present in the Americas far earlier, and has created a database of North and South American archaeological sites that are thought to date from 250,000 to 12,000 years before present day.

Steeves is featured in Walking with Ancients, a documentary from The Nature of Things that explores how new archaeological discoveries are challenging our understanding of when the first people arrived in North America, featuring findings from dig sites from the Yukon to Mexico.

In an interview with documentary director Robin Bicknell, Steeves shares her story, and explains how conversations about colonialism and racism have largely been absent from archaeological research, impacting the way it's been funded, presented and taught.

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