The history of the First Nations is the prehistory and history of present-day Canada's peoples from the earliest times to the present day with a focus on the First Nations. The pre-history settlement of the Americas is a subject of ongoing debate because First Nations oral history, combined with new methodologies and technologies which are used by archaeologists, linguists, and other researchers, produce—new and sometimes conflicting—evidence. The 1996 Report by 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).