11,000-year-old settlement in Canada could rewrite history of Indigenous civilizations in North America

Two people standing in front of a cliff, looking at the different colored lines of soil running horizontally — Experts look at the eroding cliff where the site was discovered in Saskatchewan, Canada.

(Image credit: Sturgeon Lake First Nation)

An 11,000-year-old settlement in Canada is challenging the idea that early Indigenous people were nomadic. The newly uncovered village site of Âsowanânihk, which means "a place to cross" in the Cree language, is one of the oldest archaeological sites found on the continent and suggests that an organized society existed in central Canada far earlier than experts previously thought.

"This site is shaking up everything we thought we knew and could change the narrative of early Indigenous civilizations in North America," amateur archaeologist Dave Rondeau, who first identified the site in 2023, said in a Feb. 4 statement.

Evidence already recovered from Âsowanânihk, located in the Sturgeon Lake First Nation (SLFN) in central Saskatchewan, includes stone tools, firepits and bison bones, according to the statement. A very large firepit suggests that the site was used for a long period, or repeatedly for shorter periods, according to Glenn Stuart, an archaeologist at the University of Saskatchewan who is involved in the project. Such use indicates that the settlement was likely a long-term one, rather than a temporary hunting camp, where Indigenous hunters strategically harvested the extinct Bison antiquus.

The site of Âsowanânihk is currently being studied by archaeologists, including Stuart, alongside the SLFN's Âsowanânihk Council, which includes Elders, Knowledge Keepers and educators. The council is also working with local stakeholders to protect the site, which was originally identified because it was eroding out of a riverbank and now faces potential destruction from logging activities in the area.

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Kristina Killgrove is a staff writer at Live Science with a focus on archaeology and paleoanthropology news. Her articles have also appeared in venues such as Forbes, Smithsonian, and Mental Floss. Kristina holds a Ph.D. in biological anthropology and an M.A. in classical archaeology from the University of North Carolina, as well as a B.A. in Latin from the University of Virginia, and she was formerly a university professor and researcher. She has received awards from the Society for American Archaeology and the American Anthropological Association for her science writing.