By 9,000 years ago, people were well-established across the length and breadth of the Americas. It is important to remember that this was still a very long time ago. Farming was just being developed in Asia, and it would be thousands of years before anyone thought of the concept of writing.

Determining time spans, and the ages of artifacts or sites is an important part of archaeology. Many methods for assigning dates are used, depending on the available information, materials and technology. Although the most important dating method used by archaeologists is radiocarbon dating, there are other techniques archaeologists can use to measure time.
Click here to learn more about archaeological dating methods:
Measuring time

The earliest archaeological sites on the Northwest Pacific coast are radiocarbon dated to about 9,000 – 10,000 years ago. This may seem too late to account for the much earlier Clovis sites to the south, but many archaeologists believe that earlier coastal sites have not been found because they are now drowned beneath the ocean.
Click here to learn more about coastal archaeological sites:
Kilgii Gwaay
Richardson Island

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