Time to Grow: Reevaluating Archaeological Approaches to Indigenous Human–Plant Relationships in the Canadian Northern Plains

Abstract Archaeological knowledge of Indigenous human–plant relationships within the Canadian northern plains is comparatively limited to more southern areas of the Great Plains. This is partly due to a lack of standardized requirements and methodologies for paleoethnobotanical research in Canadian cultural resource management; in addition, often such research is only routinely practiced by paleoethnobotanists, of which there are few in the study region. However, deep-rooted traditions of Eurocentric Western ontologies have also shaped archaeological knowledge of precolonial Indigenous human–plant relationships. This article illuminates how archaeological knowledge of precolonial Indigenous Ways-of-Being has been highly influenced by early historical, anthropological, and settler-colonial logics. We then collate and reevaluate archaeological evidence of Indigenous plant management from the Canadian northern plains (e.g., paleoethnobotanical evidence) and problematize contemporary archaeological approaches to past Indigenous human–plant relationships in the study area. To conclude, we suggest pathways for expanding archaeological knowledge of Indigenous human–plant relationships in the Canadian northern plains through engaging with Indigenous Knowledge, dismantling remnant colonial foundations in archaeological practices, and expanding archaeological science approaches.