Upstream

Colonialism and white supremacy have shaped the field of archaeology from its inception — and to this day continue to dominate the cultural and scientific paradigms of this field of study. One of the most significant ways that this has shown up in the discipline is through the hegemony of a single theory — the Clovis First Hypothesis — which claims that the Americas were populated roughly ten to twelve thousand years ago — and not earlier.  In her book, The Indigenous Paleolithic of the Western Hemisphere, Dr. Paulette Steeves meticulously deconstructs and dispels the myth that human beings have only been in the Americas for ten thousand years. She builds on decades of research which has been suppressed and erroneously refuted by those in the field who have never wanted to accept the fact that the Indigenous people of the Americas have been here for much, much longer than was ever admitted by the most influential and powerful archaeologists. Dr. Paulette Steeves is an Indigenous archaeologist, professor at A