Artifactuality Podcast: We Have Always Been Here – Conversations With Blackfoot Elders About Archaeology, Time and Territory

Located in the heart of Blackfoot territory, Wally’s Beach is on former farmland just across the St. Mary River from the reserve of the Kainai Nation — one of the three Niisitapiikwan (Blackfoot Confederacy) nations, along with the Siksika and Pikani. Wally’s Beach lies in what was once the Ice-Free Corridor — a geographic area where continental ice sheets began to melt about 18,000 years ago, at the end of the last ice age. The corridor has been at the centre of hotly debated theories about the peopling of North America. Many academic researchers now assert that humans first entered North America by crossing the Bering Land Bridge from Asia and gradually moving southward through the Ice-Free Corridor. Yet Blackfoot creation stories don’t mention a land bridge. For the Blackfeet, their history begins in the Northern Plains: they have always been there.

Dr. Gabriel Yanicki, the Curator of Central Archaeology at the Canadian Museum of History, has studied Wally’s Beach for over a decade. In October 2022, he reached out to Blackfoot Elders to share his work and think about how it connects to Blackfoot notions of place and time. Yanicki’s work suggests that some early North Americans may have arrived in Blackfoot territory from the south. He looks at evidence, such as this beautifully crafted obsidian blade, to track the movement of people across the territory. Found by archaeologists near Grande Prairie, Alberta, this spear blade is made from obsidian that matches that from volcanoes located much further south.

Just how far back the human presence in North America goes is a question that has preoccupied archaeologists for decades. At the same time, the scientific search for material evidence does not reflect Blackfoot understandings of the past. In this episode of Artifactuality, Dr. Leroy Little Bear explains that, beyond the threshold of two days, Blackfoot see the past as belonging to the realm of “just is.” In the absence of written historical records, the repetition of stories and oral histories preserves cultural memory, ensuring that ancestral knowledge is close at hand. As Dr. Little Bear says, “My ancestors’ stories are just two days away.”

Blackfoot notions of time have not always been considered within the context of the archaeological record. In the past, the scientific pursuit of knowledge about when humans arrived in the territory now known as Canada was focused on pinpointing timelines and identifying the evolution of peoples, tools and animals. Elders Kent Ayoungman and Jerry Potts agree that, while new advances in archaeology make it indispensable for establishing the historical Indigenous presence in North America, Blackfoot creation stories, material culture, and art must be considered in tandem with archaeological findings and theories.