The village on a remote island in British Columbia is estimated to be 14,000 years old – three times older than the Egyptian pyramids.
And incredible finds beneath the mud on tiny Triquet Island include spears, fishing hooks and fire-lighting tools.
Archaeologists are now trying to piece together clues about life in the village – the oldest ever found in North America.
Academic Alisha Gauvreau told CTV Vancouver Island News: “I remember when we get the dates back and we just kind of sat there going, holy moly, this is old.
“What this is doing is just changing our idea of the way in which North America was first peopled.”
The first people to live in America are thought to have crossed into Alaska from what is now Russia.
They are then believed to have spread throughout the continent and down into South America.
Triquet Island is little more than 200 miles south of the Alaskan border on Canada’s west coast.
Local indigenous peoples of the Heiltsuk tribe have long passed down stories of ancient settlements on the same stretch of coast.
And the discovery is believed to have proved that oral stories passed down over thousands of years carried a degree of truth.
Heiltsuk Nation spokesman William Housty said: “To think about how these stories survived all of that, only to be supported by this archaeological evidence is just amazing.”
