October 14, 2026 (Wednesday)

• Registration and Kickoff Reception

October 15, 2026 (Thursday)   

• Welcome and Introduction

 

• Session 1. Genetic Evidence of the First Americans
  • Understanding the Peopling of the Americas from Ancient Genomics

Eske Willerslev

• • Correlating the Genetic History of Dogs and People Following Their Arrival into the Americas

Greger Larson

 

• Session 2. Late Pleistocene Archaeology of Beringia
  • Back to the Source: Exploring Northeast Asia for the Origins of the First Americans

Ted Goebel

• • The Shég’ Xdaltth’í’ Site in Central Alaska and Its Contribution to the Peopling of Beringia

Kelly Graf

• • Beringian Archaeology, Genetics, and Northeast Asian - North American Connections

Ben A. Potter

• • Late Upper Paleolithic Archaeology of Coastal Northeast Asia and Its Relation to the Late Pleistocene Peopling of the Americas: An Update

Masami Izuho

• • Speaker discussion and Q&A

 

• Session 3.  Routes and Process of Human Dispersal South of the Ice Sheets
  • Viability and Timing of Pre-Last Glacial Maximum and Deglacial Connections Between Beringia and Continental North America Through the Ice Free Corridor

Duane Froese, Peter D. Heintzman, Scott Cocker, Christopher N. Jass, John W. Ives, Sophie Norris, Alberto Reyes, Robin Woywitka, Joseph Young and Beth Shapiro

• • The Mythical Corridor—Rapidly Shifting Perspectives

John W. Ives, Todd J. Kristensen, Robin Woywitka, Gabriel Yanicki, and Dale Fisher

• • Initial Coastal Migration into The Americas: What We Know and Need to Know

Todd J. Braje and Jon M. Erlandson

• • Archaeological and Paleo-environmental Insights into the Post-Glacial Emergence of Land, Sea, Biota and People on the Pacific Coast of Canada

Duncan McLaren, Bryn Letham, Christopher Hebda, Lindsay Worden, Angela Dyck and Daryl Fedje

 

• Session 4. Late Pleistocene Occupation of the Americas (Part 1)
  •  Stepping into the New World: Evidence from Fossil Footprints

 Matthew Bennett

• • Exploring Site Function and Patterns in the Upper Paleolithic of North America: A Case Study from the Gault Site

Thomas J. Williams and Nancy Velchoff

• • Speaker Discussion and Q&A

 

• Poster Session 1. Poster Presentations and Meet Speakers

 

October 16, 2026 (Friday)

• Announcements

 

• Session 5.  Late Pleistocene Occupation of the Americas (Part 2)
  • Synthesizing the Evidence and Implication of the First Peopling of South America

Tom D. Dillehay

• • Cooper's Ferry/Nipéhe: A Keystone Pre-Clovis Site in North America

Loren G. Davis

• • The Page-Ladson Site, Florida, and the Contributions of Submerged Landscapes Archaeology to First Americans Research

Jessi J. Halligan, Morgan F. Smith, Neil N. Puckett, Adam M. Burke, Nicholas K. Bentley, and Trevor H. Gittelhough

• • Late Pleistocene Human Occupations of the Paisley Caves

Dennis L. Jenkins

• • Archaeological Evidence from the Debra L. Friedkin and Manis Sites and the Initial Late Pleistocene Peopling of North America

Michael R. Waters

• • Speaker Discussion and Q&A

 

• Session 6. Clovis and the Western Stemmed Traditions of North America and Megafauna Extinction
  • Current Assessments of the Clovis Complex and its Role in the Peopling of the Americas

Heather L. Smith and Ashley M. Medlin

• • Domestic Spaces at the La Prele Site, Converse County, Wyoming

Todd A. Surovell, Madeline E. Mackie, Spencer R. Pelton, Matthew J. O’Brien, Paul Sanders, and Robert L. Kelly

• • Recent Late Pleistocence Geoarcheological Investigations in Northwest Mexico

Guadalupe Sanchez Miranda

• • The What, Where, and When of the Western Stemmed Tradition

Richard L. Rosencrance, Geoffrey M. Smith, and Katelyn N. McDonough

• • Echoes of the First Americans: The Significance of Fell Points in the Peopling of the New World

Hugo G. Nami

• • Timing, Causes, and Ecological Consequences of Pleistocene Mammal and Bird Extinctions in North America: a Regional Analysis

Emily Lindsey, John Southon & Michael Waters

• • Speaker Discussion and Q&A

 

• Poster Session 2.  Poster Presentations and Meet Speakers

 

October 17, 2026 (Saturday)

• Session 7. Terminal Pleistocene Archaeology of the Americas
  • A Post-Clovis Profusion: The Spatiotemporal Distribution of Stemmed Projectile Points in Western North America

Edward J. Knell, Geoffrey M. Smith, Jon M. Erlandson, Jackson C. Mueller, and Matthew E. Hill, Jr.

• • The Post-Clovis Younger Dryas Record of the Eastern Woodlands

Thomas A. Jennings and Ashley M. Smallwood

• • Peopling Central America: Stone Tool Technologies, Site Distributions, and New Understandings of the Earliest Occupants of the New World Neotropics

Jon C. Lohse, Mike McBride, Sébastien Perrot-Minnot and Victoria C. Pagano

• • Early Peopling in Northwestern South America: a Review of the Present State of the Discussion

Francisco Javier Aceituno

• • How Old Could be a New World? Brazilian Archaeological Perspectives for Early Peopling of Americas

Lucas Bueno and Adriana Dias

• • The Peopling of Western South America: Evidence from Andean and Pacific Corridors

Kurt Rademaker

• • The Andean Corridor West of Southern South America: Weighing the Timing and Characteristics of the Late Pleistocene Occupation

César Méndez

• • Speaker Discussion and Q&A

 

• Session 8. Frontiers and Moving Forward
  • What We Know and Still Don’t Know About the Peopling of the Americas

David Meltzer

• • The Peopling of the Americas: Current Understanding and Future Directions

David G. Anderson, Thaddeus G. Bissett, J. Christopher Gillam, Eric C. Kansa, Sarah Whitcher Kansa, D. Shane Miller, Ashley M. Smallwood, Joshua J. Wells, and Stephen J. Yerka

• • The Peopling of South America 2026: There is No Silver Bullet

Gustavo G. Politis

• • Peopling of the Western Hemisphere in the 2020s:  The State of the Art & Its Future

Bonnie L. Pitblado 

• • The Exploration of the Americas: Between the Expected and the Unexpected

Luis Alberto Borrero

• • Close

 

• Closing Gathering—Meet Speakers and Mingle

 

Program PDF