Since the emergence of the niche in Folsom, New Mexico, in the late 1920s, peopling archaeology has sought to understand the earliest human occupants of the Western Hemisphere. Three generations of practitioners have made great strides in the techno-environmental arena. However, we have largely failed to tap into PaleoIndigenous intellectual, emotional, and social lives—the very domains that made Ice Age people as fully human as we are. As a result, our interpretations of those pioneering populations could often apply as readily to a colony of ants or a herd of wildebeest as they do to living, breathing, thinking, dreaming, loving, striving human ancestors. This article first explores the reasons for our failure to fully actualize First Peoples, identifying and implicating a feedback loop that includes practitioner homogeneity (we have always been and continue to be disproportionately white men of European descent); our predominantly positivist worldview; our language, training, and practice; and even the limited nature of the material record we study. This article also, however, highlights the ways that an important minority of peopling scholars have sought to access the humanity of PaleoIndigenous people. By more consistently mobilizing our own human capacity to creatively interrogate the deep past, we will produce scholarship that more consistently recognizes the capacity of the people who lived it and, just as importantly, respects those living today.

自 1920 年代后期新墨西哥州福尔瑟姆的生态位出现以来，人类考古学一直试图了解西半球最早的人类居住者。三代从业者在科技环保领域取得了长足的进步。然而，我们在很大程度上未能利用古土著的智力、情感和社会生活——正是这些领域使冰河时代的人们像我们一样完全是人类。因此，我们对这些先驱种群的解释通常可以适用于蚂蚁群或牛羚群，就像它们适用于生活、呼吸、思考、梦想、爱和奋斗的人类祖先一样。本文首先探讨了我们未能完全实现第一民族的原因，识别和暗示包括从业者同质性在内的反馈循环（我们一直并将继续是不成比例的欧洲血统白人）；我们以实证主义为主的世界观；我们的语言、培训和实践；甚至我们研究的物质记录的有限性质。然而，这篇文章也强调了少数重要的人学者寻求接触古土著人人性的方式。通过更始终如一地调动我们自己的人类能力来创造性地审视过去，我们将产生更一致地承认生活在其中的人们的能力的学术，同样重要的是，尊重那些生活在今天的人。和实践；甚至我们研究的物质记录的有限性质。然而，这篇文章也强调了少数重要的人学者寻求接触古土著人人性的方式。通过更始终如一地调动我们自己的人类能力来创造性地审视过去，我们将产生更加一致地承认生活在过去的人们的能力的学术研究，同样重要的是，尊重那些生活在今天的人。和实践；甚至我们研究的物质记录的有限性质。然而，这篇文章也强调了少数重要的人学者寻求接触古土著人人性的方式。通过更始终如一地调动我们自己的人类能力来创造性地审视过去，我们将产生更加一致地承认生活在过去的人们的能力的学术研究，同样重要的是，尊重那些生活在今天的人。