ABSTRACT
The Americas were initially populated during the Pleistocene ice age, at least seventeen thousand years ago. Many descendants of America’s First Nations consider their religious traditions, that they originated in a spiritual realm connected to this world, to be sufficient knowledge for the question of earliest population. A scientific worldview, by definition of science limited to empirically demonstrable data, cannot admit spiritually revealed knowledge. Thus there may appear to be strong differences between a First Nation’s account of its earliest history and the narratives prepared by professional archaeologists and paleoanthropologists. Some Indian champions feel challenged by European-derived science, and some archaeologists defend narrow scientific explanations against any other beliefs. It is important to understand that theology and science need not conflict: an account of spiritual origins conveys religious knowledge and generally can accommodate the more limited empirically based interpretations developed by scientists.
