Archaeological evidence suggests that Indigenous peoples have been living in this hemisphere for at least 15,000 years. More recent DNA evidence indicates an even longer period of 20,000 years. By either metric, Indigenous communities were already here when the last glaciation ended, changing the shape of coastlines and land-masses everywhere. They had been here for thousands of years by the time the first small farming villages emerged on the other side of the globe, in ancient Mesopotamia. During every recorded historical event across Afroeurasia, Indigenous societies in this hemisphere...
