The history of First Nations is a prehistory and history of present-day Canada's peoples from the earliest times to the present with a focus on First Nations. The pre-history settlement of the Americas is subject of ongoing debate as First Nations oral history, combined with new methodologies and technologies used by archaeologists, linguists, and other researchers, produce new and sometimes conflicting, evidence. The 1996 Report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal People described four stages in Canadian history that overlap and occur at different times in different regions: 1) Pre-contact – Different Worlds – Contact; 2) Early Colonies (1500–1763); 3) Displacement and Assimilation (1764–1969); and 4) Renewal to Constitutional Entrenchment (2018).