Paulette Steeves. Ph.D. (Cree- Metis)
Dr.Paulette Steeves Is an Indigenous archaeologist born in Whitehorse, Yukon Territories, and grew up in Lillooet, British Columbia, Canada. As a first-generation college graduate, Dr. Steeves received her BA in Anthropology, Honors Cum Laude from The University of Arkansas at Fayetteville in 2000, and completed a two-year internship with the Quapaw NAGPRA program during her undergraduate studies.
In 2008 Dr. Steeves was awarded the Clifford D. Clark fellowship to attend graduate studies at Binghamton University in New York State, where she successfully defended her dissertation in 2015. She has taught Anthropology courses in Canada and the USA, with her main focus being Native American and First Nations histories, and decolonization of academia and knowledge production.
Photo Credit: Dr. Steve Hollen
​​Currently, she is an Associate Professor in Sociology at Algoma University and a Canada Research Chair in Healing and Reconciliation. Dr. Steeves' primary research focuses on the Western Hemisphere's Indigenous Paleolithic, healing, and reconciliation: she argues that Indigenous peoples were present in the Western Hemisphere as early as 130,000 years before the present, and possibly much earlier.
During her research, Dr. Steeves has compiled a database of hundreds of archaeological sites in both North and South America that dates back 12,000-250,000 years. This challenges the Clovis First dogma of a post 12,000 year before present initial migrations to the Western Hemisphere (the Americas). In 2021 her first book The Indigenous Paleolithic of the Western Hemisphere was published by the University of Nebraska.