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{{short description|Prehistoric culture in the Americas c. 11,100 to 10,800 BCE}}{{Use dmy dates|date=January 2018}}

factoids

The Clovis culture is an archaeological culture from the Paleoindian period of North America, spanning around 13,050 to 12,750 years Before Present.JOURNAL, Waters, Michael R., Stafford, Thomas W., Carlson, David L., 2020-10-23, The age of Clovis—13,050 to 12,750 cal yr B.P., Science Advances, en, 6, 43, eaaz0455, 2020SciA....6..455W, 10.1126/sciadv.aaz0455, 2375-2548, 7577710, 33087355, Found in localities across the continent, the type locality is Blackwater Draw locality No. 1 near Clovis, New Mexico, where stone tools were found in association with the remains of Columbian mammoths in 1929.JOURNAL, Boldurian, Anthony T., January 2008, Clovis Type-Site, Blackwater Draw, New Mexico: A History, 1929-2009,weblink North American Archaeologist, en, 29, 1, 65–89, 10.2190/NA.29.1.d, 0197-6931, The most distinctive part of the Clovis culture toolkit are Clovis points,JOURNAL, Morrow, Juliet E., 2019-04-03, On Fluted Point Morphometrics, Cladistics, and the Origins of the Clovis Culture,weblink PaleoAmerica, en, 5, 2, 191–205, 10.1080/20555563.2019.1618179, 2055-5563, these fluted (having a flake removed from the base, either on one or both sides) lanceolate points are typically large in size, the largest exceeding {{Convert|10|cm|in}} in length. Other stone tools used by Clovis culture include knives, scrapers and bifacial tools, with bone tools including beveled rods and shaft wrenches, with possible ivory points also being identified. The Clovis culture is suggested to have also heavily utilized hide, wood and natural fibres, though no direct evidence of this has been preserved. A distinctive feature of the Clovis culture is the deposition of "caches", which are sets of artifacts that were deliberately deposited with the expectation of being later retrieved. Over 20 Clovis caches have been identified.JOURNAL, Schroedl, Alan R., 2021-04-03, The geographic origin of Clovis technology: Insights from Clovis biface caches,weblink Plains Anthropologist, en, 66, 258, 120–148, 10.1080/00320447.2021.1888188, 0032-0447, The Clovis culture is thought to been created by highly mobile hunter-gatherer populations.JOURNAL, Ellis, Christopher, July 2013, Clovis Lithic Technology: The Devil Is in the Details,weblink Reviews in Anthropology, en, 42, 3, 127–160, 10.1080/00938157.2013.817867, 0093-8157, 161844234, It is generally agreed that the producers of the Clovis culture were reliant on hunting big game (megafauna), having the strongest association with mammoth, mastodon and bison, alongside consuming smaller animals and plants.Thomas A. Jennings and Ashley M. Smallwood "The Clovis Record" The SAA Archaeological Record May 2019 • Volume 19 • Number 3 Due to the close temporal association between the Clovis culture and the Late Pleistocene megafauna extinctions in North America, suggestions have been made that big game hunting by Clovis hunters may have been a contributory factor in the extinctions, though this has been subject to controversy.JOURNAL, Waguespack, Nicole M., Surovell, Todd A., April 2003, Clovis Hunting Strategies, or How to Make out on Plentiful Resources,weblink American Antiquity, en, 68, 2, 333–352, 10.2307/3557083, 3557083, 0002-7316, The only human burial that has been directly associated with tools from the Clovis culture included the remains of an infant boy found in Montana that researchers named Anzick-1.JOURNAL, Owsley, Douglas W, Hunt, David, May 2001, Clovis and early Archaic crania from the Anzick site (24PA506), Park County, Montana, Plains Anthropologist, 46, 176, 115–124, 10.1080/2052546.2001.11932062, 159572593, New Rdiocarbon Dates for the Anzick Clovis Burial by Juliet E. Morrow and Stuart J.Fiedel. In Paleoindian Archaeology, edited by J.E.Morrow and C.G.Gnecco. University Press of Florida, Gainesville.WEB, Raff, Jennifer, 8 February 2022, A Genetic Chronicle of the First Peoples in the Americas,weblink 9 October 2022, Sapiens (magazine), Sapiens, Paleogenetic analyses of Anzick-1's ancient nuclear, mitochondrial, and Y-chromosome DNAJOURNAL, Rasmussen, M., Anzick, S. L., Waters, M. R., Skoglund, P., DeGiorgio, M., Stafford, T. W., Rasmussen, S., Moltke, I., Albrechtsen, A., Doyle, S. M., Poznik, G. D., Gudmundsdottir, V., Yadav, R., Malaspinas, A. S., White, S. S., 2014-02-13, The genome of a Late Pleistocene human from a Clovis burial site in western Montana, Nature, 506, 7487, 225–229, 2014Natur.506..225R, 10.1038/nature13025, 4878442, 24522598, Allentoft, M. E., Cornejo, O. E., Tambets, K., Eriksson, A., Heintzman, P. D., Karmin, M., Korneliussen, T. S., Meltzer, D. J., Pierre, T. L., Stenderup, J., Saag, L., Warmuth, V. M., Lopes, M. C., Malhi, R. S., Brunak, S. R., Søren Brunak, Sicheritz-Ponten, T., Barnes, I., Collins, M., Orlando, L., Balloux, F., Manica, A., Gupta, R., Metspalu, M., Bustamante, C. D., Carlos D. Bustamante, Jakobsson, M., Nielsen, R., Willerslev, E., Eske Willerslev, reveal that Anzick-1 is closely related to some modern Native American populations, including those in Southern North America, Central America, and South America.JOURNAL, Raff, J. A., Bolnick, D. A., 2014-02-13, Palaeogenomics: Genetic roots of the first Americans, Nature, 506, 7487, 162–163, 2014Natur.506..162R, 10.1038/506162a, 24522593, 4445278, free, In South America, the similar related Fishtail or Fell point style was contemporaneous to the usage of Clovis points in North America,JOURNAL, Potter, Ben A., Chatters, James C., Prentiss, Anna Marie, Fiedel, Stuart J., Haynes, Gary, Kelly, Robert L., Kilby, J. David, Lanoë, François, Holland-Lulewicz, Jacob, Miller, D. Shane, Morrow, Juliet E., Perri, Angela R., Rademaker, Kurt M., Reuther, Joshua D., Ritchison, Brandon T., 2022-01-02, Current Understanding of the Earliest Human Occupations in the Americas: Evaluation of Becerra-Valdivia and Higham (2020),weblink PaleoAmerica, en, 8, 1, 62–76, 10.1080/20555563.2021.1978721, 2055-5563, 239834259, and possibly developed from Clovis points.JOURNAL, Fiedel, Stuart J., July 2017, The Anzick genome proves Clovis is first, after all,weblink Quaternary International, en, 444, 4–9, 2017QuInt.444....4F, 10.1016/j.quaint.2017.06.022, The Clovis culture represents the earliest widely recognised archaeological culture in North America.JOURNAL, Eren, Metin I., Story, Brett, Perrone, Alyssa, Bebber, Michelle, Hamilton, Marcus, Walker, Robert, Buchanan, Briggs, 2020-10-01, North American Clovis Point Form and Performance: An Experimental Assessment of Penetration Depth,weblink Lithic Technology, en, 45, 4, 263–282, 10.1080/01977261.2020.1794358, 0197-7261, While historically many scholars held to a "Clovis first" model, where Clovis represented the earliest inhabitants in the Americas, today this is largely rejected, with several generally accepted sites across the Americas like Monte Verde II being dated to at least a thousand years older than the oldest Clovis sites.JOURNAL, Potter, Ben A., Chatters, James C., Prentiss, Anna Marie, Fiedel, Stuart J., Haynes, Gary, Kelly, Robert L., Kilby, J. David, Lanoë, François, Holland-Lulewicz, Jacob, Miller, D. Shane, Morrow, Juliet E., Perri, Angela R., Rademaker, Kurt M., Reuther, Joshua D., Ritchison, Brandon T., 2022-01-02, Current Understanding of the Earliest Human Occupations in the Americas: Evaluation of Becerra-Valdivia and Higham (2020),weblink PaleoAmerica, en, 8, 1, 62–76, 10.1080/20555563.2021.1978721, 2055-5563, The Clovis culture was succeeded by more local traditions such as the Folsom tradition beginning around 12,750-12,600 years Before Present, following the onset of the Younger Dryas.JOURNAL, Surovell, Todd A., Boyd, Joshua R., Haynes, C. Vance, Hodgins, Gregory W. L., 2016-04-02, On the Dating of the Folsom Complex and its Correlation with the Younger Dryas, the End of Clovis, and Megafaunal Extinction,weblink PaleoAmerica, en, 2, 2, 81–89, 10.1080/20555563.2016.1174559, 2055-5563,

Discovery

On 29 August 1927, the first in place evidence of Pleistocene humans seen by multiple archaeologists in the Americas was discovered near Folsom, New Mexico. At this site they found the first in situ Folsom point with the bones of the extinct bison species Bison antiquus. This confirmation of a human presence in the Americas during the Pleistocene inspired many people to start looking for evidence of early humans.WEB, 2004, America's Stone Age Explorers,weblink Nova (American TV series), Nova, PBS TV, dmy-all, In 1929, 19-year-old Ridgely Whiteman, who had been closely following the excavations in nearby Folsom in the newspaper, discovered the Clovis site near the Blackwater Draw in eastern New Mexico. Despite several earlier Paleoindian discoveries, the best documented evidence of the Clovis complex was collected and excavated between 1932 and 1937 near Clovis, New Mexico, by a crew under the direction of Edgar Billings Howard until 1935 and later by John Cotter from the Academy of Natural Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania. Howard's crew left their excavation in Burnet Cave, the first truly professionally excavated Clovis site, in August, 1932, and visited Whiteman and his Blackwater Draw site. By November, Howard was back at Blackwater Draw to investigate additional finds from a construction project.JOURNAL, Mann, Charles C., 2005, 1491: new revelations of the Americas before Columbus, The American Journal of Archaeology, in its January–March 1932 edition, mentions E. B. Howard's work in Burnet Cave, including the discovery of extinct fauna and a "Folsom type" point 4 ft below a Basketmaker burial. This brief mention of the Clovis point found in place predates any work done at the Dent site in Colorado. The reference is made to a slightly earlier article on Burnet Cave in The University Museum Bulletin of November, 1931.JOURNAL, Heffner, Edward H., Blegen, Elizabeth Pierce, Burrows, Millar, 1932, Archaeological News,weblink American Journal of Archaeology, 36, 1, 43–73, 10.2307/498270, 498270, 245265264, The first report of professional work at the Blackwater Draw Clovis site was published in the 25 November issue of Science News (V22 #601) in 1932.NEWS, In Science Fields,weblink 2022-02-04, Science News, The publications on Burnet Cave and Blackwater Draw directly contradict statements by several authors (for example see Haynes 2002:56 The Early Settlement of North AmericaBOOK, Haynes, Gary,weblink The early settlement of North America : the Clovis era, 2009, Cambridge Univ. Press, 978-0-521-52463-6, 729934146, ) that Dent, Colorado was the first excavated Clovis site. The Dent site, in Weld County, Colorado, was simply a fossil mammoth excavation in 1932. The first Dent Clovis point was found on 5 November 1932, and the in situ point was found 7 July 1933.BOOK, Cassells, E. Steve, The archaeology of Colorado, 1997, Johnson Books, 0-585-00147-2, Boulder, Colo., 42636402, The in situ Clovis point from Burnet Cave was excavated in late August, 1931 (and was reported in early 1932).JOURNAL, 1990, The Initial Research at Clovis, New Mexico: 1932-1937,weblink Plains Anthropologist, 35, 130, 1–20, 10.1080/2052546.1990.11909595, 25668959,

Material culture

A feature considered to be distinctive of the Clovis tradition is overshot flaking, overshot flakes are those which "during the manufacture of a biface are struck from prepared edges of a piece and travel from one edge across the face", with limited removal of the opposite edge. Whether or not the overshot flaking was intentional on the part of the stoneknapper has been contested,JOURNAL, Eren, Metin I., Patten, Robert J., O'Brien, Michael J., Meltzer, David J., March 2014, More on the Rumor of "Intentional Overshot Flaking" and the Purported Ice-Age Atlantic Crossing, Lithic Technology, en, 39, 1, 55–63, 10.1179/0197726113Z.00000000033, 0197-7261, free, with other authors suggesting that overface flaking (where flakes that travel past the midline, but terminate before reaching the opposite end are removed) was the primary goal. Other elements considered distinctive of the Clovis culture tool complex include "raw material selectivity; distinctive patterns of flake and blade platform preparation, thinning and flaking; characteristic biface size and morphology, including the presence of end-thinning; and the size, curvature and reduction strategies of blades".JOURNAL, Eren, Metin I., Meltzer, David J., Andrews, Brian N., 2018-07-03, Is Clovis Technology Unique to Clovis?,weblink PaleoAmerica, en, 4, 3, 202–218, 10.1080/20555563.2018.1531277, 2055-5563, It has long been recognised that the definition of the Clovis culture is to a degree ambiguous, the term being "used in a number of ways, referring to an era, to a culture, and most specifically, to a distinctive projectile point type" with disagreement between scholars about distinguishing between Clovis and various other Paleoindian archaeological cultures.JOURNAL, Beck, Charlotte, Jones, George T., Taylor, Amanda K., 2019-04-03, What's Not Clovis? An Examination of Fluted Points in the Far West,weblink PaleoAmerica, en, 5, 2, 109–120, 10.1080/20555563.2019.1613145, 2055-5563,

Tools

Clovis point

(File:Clovis Point.jpg|thumb|Example of a Clovis point)A hallmark of the toolkit associated with the Clovis culture is the distinctively shaped lithic point known as the Clovis point. Clovis points are bifacial (having flakes removed from both faces) and typically fluted (having an elongate flake removed from the base of the point) on both sides, with the fluting typically running up a thirdJOURNAL, Buchanan, Briggs, O’Brien, Michael J., Collard, Mark, June 2014, Continent-wide or region-specific? A geometric morphometrics-based assessment of variation in Clovis point shape,weblink Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences, en, 6, 2, 145–162, 10.1007/s12520-013-0168-x, 2014ArAnS...6..145B, 1866-9557, or a half of the length of the point, distinct from many later Paleoindian traditions where the flute runs up the entire point length. Clovis points are typically parallel-sided to slightly convex, with the base of the point being concave. Clovis points are commonly understood to serve as tips for spears or darts thrown with an atlatl for hunting, as well as serving as multi-tools for cutting and other tasks.JOURNAL, Gaggioli, Amanda, 2016, Making Better Knives: An Experimental Analysis of Projectile Point Technology and Multifunctional Uses,weblink International Journal of Student Research in Archaeology, 1, 1, 211–224, JOURNAL, Eren, Metin I., Meltzer, David J., Story, Brett, Buchanan, Briggs, Yeager, Don, Bebber, Michelle R., 2021-10-01, On the efficacy of Clovis fluted points for hunting proboscideans, Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, 39, 103166, 2021JArSR..39j3166E, 10.1016/j.jasrep.2021.103166, 2352-409X, free, Clovis points were at least sometimes resharpened, though the idea that they were continually resharpened "long-life" tools has been questioned.JOURNAL, Buchanan, Briggs, Eren, Metin I., Boulanger, Matthew T., O'Brien, Michael J., September 2015, Size, shape, scars, and spatial patterning: A quantitative assessment of late Pleistocene (Clovis) point resharpening,weblink Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, en, 3, 11–21, 10.1016/j.jasrep.2015.05.011, 2015JArSR...3...11B, The shape and size of Clovis points varies signficantly over space and time. The largest points exceed {{Convert|10|cm|in}} in length. The points required considerable effort to make, and often broke during knapping, particularly during fluting. The fluting may have served to make the finished points more durable during use via acting as a "shock absorber" to redistribute stress during impact, though others have suggested that it may have been purely stylistic or used to strengthen the hafting to the spear handle.JOURNAL, Buchanan, Briggs, Hamilton, Marcus J., Gala, Nicholas, Smith, Heather, Wilson, Michael, Eren, Metin I., Walker, Robert S., April 2024, Comparing Clovis and Folsom fluting via scaling analysis, Archaeometry, en, 66, 2, 266–281, 10.1111/arcm.12921, 0003-813X, free, JOURNAL, Thomas, Kaitlyn A., Story, Brett A., Eren, Metin I., Buchanan, Briggs, Andrews, Brian N., O'Brien, Michael J., Meltzer, David J., May 2017, Explaining the origin of fluting in North American Pleistocene weaponry,weblink Journal of Archaeological Science, en, 81, 23–30, 10.1016/j.jas.2017.03.004, 2017JArSc..81...23T, The points were generally produced from nodules or siliceous cryptocrystalline rocks. Clovis points were thinned using end-thinning ("the removal of blade-like flakes parallel to the long-axis"). They were initially prepared using percussion flaking, with the point being finished using pressure flaking.

Blades

Clovis blades are part of the global Upper Paleolithic blade tradition, and are long flakes removed from specially prepared conical or wedge-shaped cores.BOOK, Collins, Michael B., Clovis Blade technology: a comparative study of the Keven Davis Cache, Texas, 1999, University of Texas, 978-0-292-71235-5, Texas archaeology and ethnohistory series, Austin (Tx), Clovis blades are twice as long as they are wide, and were used and modified to create a wide variety of tools, including endscrapers (used to scrape hides), serrated tools and gravers. Unlike bifaces, Clovis blade cores do not appear to have regularly transported long distances, with only the blades typically carried in the mobile toolkit.Kilby, David. "A Regional Perspective on Clovis Blades and Blade Caching." In "Clovis: On the Edge of a New Understanding," Ed. by Ashley Smallwood and Thomas Jennings, TAMU Press., 2014.

Bifaces

Bifaces served a variety of roles for Clovis hunter-gatherers, serving as cutting tools, preforms for formal tools such as points, and as portable sources of large flakes useful as preforms or tools.JOURNAL, Kelly, Robert L., October 1988, The Three Sides of a Biface,weblink American Antiquity, 53, 4, 717–734, 10.2307/281115, 281115, 0002-7316,

Other tools

Other tools associated with the Clovis culture are adzes (likely used for woodworking), bone "shaft wrenches" (suggested to have been used to straighten wooden shafts),JOURNAL, Haynes, C. Vance, Hemmings, E. Thomas, 1968-01-12, Mammoth-Bone Shaft Wrench from Murray Springs, Arizona,weblink Science, en, 159, 3811, 186–187, 10.1126/science.159.3811.186, 17792354, 1968Sci...159..186V, 0036-8075, as well as "beveled rods", made of boneJOURNAL, Sutton, Mark Q., 2018-07-03, Paleoindian-Era Osseous Rods: Distribution, Dating, and Function,weblink PaleoAmerica, en, 4, 3, 183–201, 10.1080/20555563.2018.1525600, 2055-5563, and ivory, which may have served as shafts. Clovis people are also known to have used ivory and bone to create projectile points.

Caches

A distinctive feature of the Clovis culture generally not found in subsequent cultures is "caching", where a collection of artifacts (typically stone tools, such as Clovis points or bifaces) were deliberately left at a location, presumably with the intention to return to collect them later, though some authors have interpreted cache deposits as ritual behavior. Over 20 such "caches" have been identified across North America.

Art and ritual practices

A few Clovis culture artifacts are suspected to reflect creative expression such as rock art, the use of red ochre, and engraved stones. The best known examples of Clovis art were found at the Gault site in Texas, and consist of limestone nodules incised with expressive geometric patterns, some of which mimic leaf patterns.JOURNAL, Lemke, Ashley K., Wernecke, D. Clark, Collins, Michael B., January 2015, Early Art in North America: Clovis and Later Paleoindian Incised Artifacts from the Gault Site, Texas (41BL323),weblink American Antiquity, 80, 1, 113–133, 10.7183/0002-7316.79.4.113, 0002-7316, Clovis peoples, like other Paleoindian cultures, used red ochre for a variety of artistic and ritual purposes, including burials,JOURNAL, Zarzycka, Sandra E., Surovell, Todd A., Mackie, Madeline E., Pelton, Spencer R., Kelly, Robert L., Goldberg, Paul, Dewey, Janet, Kent, Meghan, June 2019, Long-distance transport of red ocher by Clovis foragers,weblink Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, en, 25, 519–529, 10.1016/j.jasrep.2019.05.001, 2019JArSR..25..519Z, and to cover objects in caches.Kilby, J. David, and Bruce B. Huckell. 2013. “Clovis caches: Current perspectives and future directions.” In Paleoamerican Odyssey, edited by Kelly E. Graf, Caroline V. Ketron, and Michael R. Waters, 257–272. College Station: Center for the Study of the First Americans, Texas A&M University. Clovis peoples are known to have transported ochre {{Convert|100|km|mi}} from the original outcrop. Clovis peoples are also suggested to have produced beads out of animal bones.JOURNAL, Surovell, Todd A., Litynski, McKenna L., Allaun, Sarah A., Buckley, Michael, Schoborg, Todd A., Govaerts, Jack A., O’Brien, Matthew J., Pelton, Spencer R., Sanders, Paul H., Mackie, Madeline E., Kelly, Robert L., 2024-02-05, Use of hare bone for the manufacture of a Clovis bead, Scientific Reports, en, 14, 1, 2937, 10.1038/s41598-024-53390-9, 2045-2322, 10844228, 38316967, 2024NatSR..14.2937S,

Lifestyle

File:Archidiskodon imperator121.jpg|thumb|Clovis culture artifacts have been often been found in association with Columbian mammoths (Mammuthus columbi)]]Clovis hunter-gatherers are characterized as "high-technology foragers" who utilized sophisticated technology to maintain access to resources under conditions of high mobility.JOURNAL, Kelly, Robert L., Todd, Lawrence C., April 1988, Coming into the Country: Early Paleoindian Hunting and Mobility,weblink American Antiquity, 53, 2, 231–244, 10.2307/281017, 0002-7316, 281017, In many Clovis localities, the stone tools found at the site were hundreds of kilometers away from the source stone outcrop, in one case over {{Convert|900|km|mi}} away.JOURNAL, Wernick, Christopher D., August 2015, Clovis points on flakes: A technological variation seen in long distance lithic transport,weblink Plains Anthropologist, en, 60, 235, 246–265, 10.1179/2052546X15Y.0000000004, 0032-0447, The people who produced the Clovis culture probably had a low population density, but had geographically extensive cultural networks. The Clovis culture is suggested to have heavily utilized hide, wood and natural fibres, though no direct evidence of this has been preserved. Clovis culture artifacts have often been found associated with big game, including proboscideans (Columbian mammoth, mastodon, and the gomphothere CuvieroniusJOURNAL, Sanchez, Guadalupe, Holliday, Vance T., Gaines, Edmund P., Arroyo-Cabrales, Joaquín, Martínez-Tagüeña, Natalia, Kowler, Andrew, Lange, Todd, Hodgins, Gregory W. L., Mentzer, Susan M., 2014-07-29, Human (Clovis)–gomphothere (Cuvieronius sp.) association ~13,390 calibrated yBP in Sonora, Mexico, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, en, 111, 30, 10972–10977, 2014PNAS..11110972S, 10.1073/pnas.1404546111, 0027-8424, 4121807, 25024193, free, ) bison equines of the genus EquusJOURNAL, Kooyman, Brian, Newman, Margaret E., Cluney, Christine, Lobb, Murray, Tolman, Shayne, McNeil, Paul, Hills, L. V., October 2001, Identification of Horse Exploitation by Clovis Hunters Based on Protein Analysis,weblink American Antiquity, en, 66, 4, 686–691, 10.2307/2694181, 2694181, 0002-7316, and the extinct camel Camelops,JOURNAL, Kooyman, Brian, Hills, L.V., Tolman, Shayne, McNeil, Paul, January 2012, Late Pleistocene Western Camel ( Camelops Hesternus ) Hunting in Southwestern Canada,weblink American Antiquity, en, 77, 1, 115–124, 10.7183/0002-7316.77.1.115, 0002-7316, as well as caribou/reindeer and peccaries (Platygonus, Mylohyus).{{Citation |last=Haynes |first=Gary |title=Estimates of Clovis-Era Megafaunal Populations and Their Extinction Risks |date=2009 |work=American Megafaunal Extinctions at the End of the Pleistocene |series=Vertebrate Paleobiology and Paleoanthropology |pages=39–53 |editor-last=Haynes |editor-first=Gary |url=http://link.springer.com/10.1007/978-1-4020-8793-6_3 |access-date=2024-05-02 |place=Dordrecht |publisher=Springer Netherlands |doi=10.1007/978-1-4020-8793-6_3 |isbn=978-1-4020-8792-9}} A handful of sites possibly suggest the hunting of ground sloths (Paramylodon), glyptodonts, tapirs and the llama Hemiauchenia. Proboscideans (especially mammoths) are the most common recorded species found in Clovis sites, followed by bison. However, the Clovis culture is not exclusively associated with large animals, with several sites showing the exploitation of small game like tortoises and jackrabbits. It is generally agreed that the people who produced the Clovis culture were reliant on big game for a significant portion of their diet (though also consuming smaller animals and plants), though to what degree they were reliant on megafauna is disputed, with some authors arguing for a generalist hunter gatherer lifestyle that also involved the occasional targeting of megafauna.BOOK, Smallwood, Ashley M.,weblink Clovis: On the Edge of a New Understanding, Jennings, Thomas A., 2014, Texas A&M University Press, 978-1-62349-228-1, College Station, From Mammoth to Bison: Changing Clovis Prey Availability at the End of the Pleistocene, The effectiveness of Clovis tools for hunting proboscideans has been contested by some authors, though other authors have asserted that Clovis points were likely capable of killing proboscideans, noting that replica Clovis points have been able to penetrate elephant hide in experimental tests, and that groups of hunter-gatherers in Africa have been observed killing elephants using spears.JOURNAL, Kilby, J. David, Surovell, Todd A., Huckell, Bruce B., Ringstaff, Christopher W., Hamilton, Marcus J., Haynes, C. Vance, October 2022, Evidence supports the efficacy of Clovis points for hunting proboscideans,weblink Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, en, 45, 103600, 10.1016/j.jasrep.2022.103600, 2022JArSR..45j3600K, In the Southern Plains, Clovis people created campsites of considerable size, which are often on the periphery of the region near sources of workable stone, from which they are suggested to have seasonally migrated into the plains to hunt megafauna. In the southeast, Clovis peoples created large camps that may have served as "staging areas", which may have been seasonally occupied, where a number of bands may have gathered for social occasions. At Jake Bluff in northern Oklahoma, Clovis points are associated with numerous butchered Bison antiquus bones, which represented a bison herd of at least 22 individuals. At the time of deposition, the site was a steep-sided arroyo (dry watercourse) that formed a dead-end, suggesting that Clovis hunters trapped the bison herd within the arroyo before killing them.JOURNAL, Bement, Leland C., Carter, Brian J., October 2010, Jake Bluff: Clovis Bison Hunting on the Southern Plains of North America,weblink American Antiquity, 75, 4, 907–933, 10.7183/0002-7316.75.4.907, 0002-7316,

Megafauna extinction

Beginning in the 1950s, Paul S. Martin proposed the "overkill hypothesis", suggesting that the Late Pleistocene megafauna extinctions in North America were driven by human hunting, including by Clovis peoples, with the hunting and extinction of large herbivores having a knock-on effect causing the extinction of large carnivores. This suggestion has been the subject of controversy.JOURNAL, Grayson, Donald K., Meltzer, David J., May 2003, A requiem for North American overkill,weblink Journal of Archaeological Science, en, 30, 5, 585–593, 10.1016/S0305-4403(02)00205-4, 2003JArSc..30..585G, The timing of megafauna extinction in North America also co-incides with major climatic changes, making it difficult to disentangle the effects of various factors in the megafauna extinctions.JOURNAL, Fiedel, Stuart J, August 2022, Initial Human Colonization of the Americas, Redux,weblink Radiocarbon, en, 64, 4, 845–897, 2022Radcb..64..845F, 10.1017/RDC.2021.103, 0033-8222, In a 2012 survey of archaeologists in The SAA Archaeological Record, 63% of respondents said that megafauna extinctions were likely the result of a "combination of factors".Amber D. Wheat "Survey of professional opionions regarding the peopling of the Americas." The SAA Archaeological Record Volume 12, No. 2 March 2012

Genetics

The only known Clovis burial is that of Anzick-1, an infant boy who was found near Wilsall, Montana in 1968. The body was associated with over 100 stone and bone artifacts, all of which were stained with red ochre. The individual dates to approximately 12,990–12,840 years Before Present.JOURNAL, Becerra-Valdivia, Lorena, Waters, Michael R., Stafford, Thomas W., Anzick, Sarah L., Comeskey, Daniel, Devièse, Thibaut, Higham, Thomas, 2018-07-03, Reassessing the chronology of the archaeological site of Anzick, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, en, 115, 27, 7000–7003, 10.1073/pnas.1803624115, free, 0027-8424, 6142201, 29915063, 2018PNAS..115.7000B, Sequencing of his genome demonstrates that he belonged to a population that is ancestral to many contemporary Indigenous peoples of the Americas, particularly those from Central and South America, and less related to those from contemporary North America, including Northern Mexico,JOURNAL, García-Ortiz, Humberto, Barajas-Olmos, Francisco, Contreras-Cubas, Cecilia, Cid-Soto, Miguel Ángel, Córdova, Emilio J., Centeno-Cruz, Federico, Mendoza-Caamal, Elvia, Cicerón-Arellano, Isabel, Flores-Huacuja, Marlen, Baca, Paulina, Bolnick, Deborah A., Snow, Meradeth, Flores-Martínez, Silvia Esperanza, Ortiz-Lopez, Rocio, Reynolds, Austin W., 2021-10-12, The genomic landscape of Mexican Indigenous populations brings insights into the peopling of the Americas, Nature Communications, en, 12, 1, 5942, 10.1038/s41467-021-26188-w, 2041-1723, 8511047, 34642312, 2021NatCo..12.5942G, though there is considerable variability in the genetic closeness of Central and South American indigenous peoples to Anzick-1, with older ancient South American remains generally more closely related to Anzick, suggesting that the Native American population had already diverged into multiple genetically distinct groups by the time of the Clovis culture, followed by subsequent migration of these populations later in the Holocene.JOURNAL, Posth, Cosimo, Nakatsuka, Nathan, Lazaridis, Iosif, Skoglund, Pontus, Mallick, Swapan, Lamnidis, Thiseas C., Rohland, Nadin, Nägele, Kathrin, Adamski, Nicole, Bertolini, Emilie, Broomandkhoshbacht, Nasreen, Cooper, Alan, Culleton, Brendan J., Ferraz, Tiago, Ferry, Matthew, November 2018, Reconstructing the Deep Population History of Central and South America, Cell, en, 175, 5, 1185–1197.e22, 10.1016/j.cell.2018.10.027, 6327247, 30415837, Like other Native Americans Anzick is closely related to Siberian peoples, confirming the Asian origin of the Clovis culture. He belongs to Y chromosome Haplogroup Q-L54, which is common among contemporary Native Americans, and to mitochondrial haplogroup D4h3a, which is rare among contemporary native Americans (occuring in 1.4% of contemporary Native Americans, primarily along the Pacific coast), but is more common in the very earliest Indigenous Americans.

Distribution and chronology

Some authors have suggested that the Clovis culture lasted for a relatively short period of a few centuries, with a 2020 study suggesting a temporal range based on 10 securely radiocarbon dated Clovis sites of 13,050 to 12,750 years calibrated years Before Present (BP), ending subsequent to the onset of the Younger Dryas, consistent with the results obtained in a 2007 study by the same authors.JOURNAL, Waters, Michael R., Stafford, Thomas W., 2007-02-23, Redefining the Age of Clovis: Implications for the Peopling of the Americas,weblink Science, en, 315, 5815, 1122–1126, 2007Sci...315.1122W, 10.1126/science.1137166, 17322060, 0036-8075, Other authors have argued that some sites extend the range of the Clovis culture back to 13,500 years Before Present, though the dating for these earlier sites is not secure. Some scholars have supported a long chronology for Clovis of around 1,500 years.Historically, many authors argued for a "Clovis first" paradigm, where Clovis, which represents the earliest recognisable archaeological culture in North America, were suggested to represent the earliest inhabitants of the Americas south of the Laurentide Ice Sheet. However, since the beginning of the 21st century, this hypothesis has been abandoned by most researchers, as several widely accepted sites, notably Monte Verde II in Chile (c. 14,500 years BP)JOURNAL, Pino, Mario, Dillehay, Tom D., June 2023, Monte Verde II: an assessment of new radiocarbon dates and their sedimentological context,weblink Antiquity, en, 97, 393, 524–540, 10.15184/aqy.2023.32, 0003-598X, free, as well as Paisley Caves in Oregon (c. 14,200 years BP)JOURNAL, Smith, Geoffrey M., Duke, Daron, Jenkins, Dennis L., Goebel, Ted, Davis, Loren G., O’Grady, Patrick, Stueber, Dan, Pratt, Jordan E., Smith, Heather L., 2020-01-02, The Western Stemmed Tradition: Problems and Prospects in Paleoindian Archaeology in the Intermountain West,weblink PaleoAmerica, en, 6, 1, 23–42, 10.1080/20555563.2019.1653153, 2055-5563, and Cooper's Ferry in Idaho (c. 15,800 years Before Present)JOURNAL, Davis, Loren G., Madsen, David B., Sisson, David A., Becerra-Valdivia, Lorena, Higham, Thomas, Stueber, Daniel, Bean, Daniel W., Nyers, Alexander J., Carroll, Amanda, Ryder, Christina, Sponheimer, Matt, Izuho, Masami, Iizuka, Fumie, Li, Guoqiang, Epps, Clinton W., 2022-12-23, Dating of a large tool assemblage at the Cooper's Ferry site (Idaho, USA) to ~15,785 cal yr B.P. extends the age of stemmed points in the Americas, Science Advances, en, 8, 51, eade1248, 2022SciA....8E1248D, 10.1126/sciadv.ade1248, 2375-2548, 9788777, 36563150, are suggested to be considerably older than the oldest Clovis sites. Historically, it was suggested that the ancestors of the people who produced the Clovis culture migrated into North America along the "ice free corridor", but many later scholars have suggested that a coastal migration along the Pacific coast is more likely.JOURNAL, Braje, Todd J., Erlandson, Jon M., Rick, Torben C., Davis, Loren, Dillehay, Tom, Fedje, Daryl W., Froese, Duane, Gusick, Amy, Mackie, Quentin, McLaren, Duncan, Pitblado, Bonnie, Raff, Jennifer, Reeder-Myers, Leslie, Waters, Michael R., January 2020, Fladmark + 40: What Have We Learned about a Potential Pacific Coast Peopling of the Americas?,weblink American Antiquity, en, 85, 1, 1–21, 10.1017/aaq.2019.80, 0002-7316, The Clovis culture is known from localities across North America, from southern Canada to northern Mexico and across the east and west of the continent. The area of origin of the Clovis culture remains unclear, though the development of fluted Clovis points appears to have occurred in North America south of the Laurentide Ice Sheet, and not in Beringia. The Clovis culture may have originated from the Dyuktai lithic style widespread in Beringia. While some authors have suggested that the Clovis culture resulted from diffusion of traditions through an already pre-existing Paleoindian population, others have asserted that the culture likely originated from the expansion of a single population. In Western North America, the Clovis culture was contemporaneous with and perhaps preceeded by the Western Stemmed Tradition, which produced unfluted projectile points.The Clovis culture was succeeded by various regional point styles, such as the Folsom tradition in central North America, the Cumberland point in mid/southern North America,JOURNAL, Tune, Jesse W., 2016-07-02, The Clovis–Cumberland–Dalton Succession: Settling into the Midsouth United States during the Pleistocene to Holocene Transition,weblink PaleoAmerica, en, 2, 3, 261–273, 10.1080/20555563.2016.1199193, 2055-5563, the Suwannee and Simpson points in the southeast,JOURNAL, Faught, Michael K., Pevny, Charlotte Donald, 2019-01-02, Pre-Clovis to the Early Archaic: Human Presence, Expansion, and Settlement in Florida over Four Millennia,weblink PaleoAmerica, en, 5, 1, 73–87, 10.1080/20555563.2019.1597608, 2055-5563, and Gainey points in the northeast-Great Lakes region.JOURNAL, Ellis, Christopher J., 2019-07-03, On the Reality of Gainey Points,weblink PaleoAmerica, en, 5, 3, 211–217, 10.1080/20555563.2019.1591141, 2055-5563, It is suggested that Clovis and Folsom traditions overlapped somewhat in time, perhaps around 80-400 years.JOURNAL, Buchanan, Briggs, Kilby, J. David, LaBelle, Jason M., Surovell, Todd A., Holland-Lulewicz, Jacob, Hamilton, Marcus J., July 2022, Bayesian Modeling of the Clovis and Folsom Radiocarbon Records Indicates a 200-Year Multigenerational Transition,weblink American Antiquity, en, 87, 3, 567–580, 10.1017/aaq.2021.153, 0002-7316, This is generally considered to be the result of normal cultural change through time.BOOK, Haynes, Gary, The Early Settlement of North America: The Clovis Era, Cambridge University Press, 2002, 978-0-521-52463-6, New York, 52, The end of the Clovis culture may have been driven by the decline of megafauna that the Clovis hunted, as well as decreasing mobility resulting in local differentiation of lithic and cultural traditions across North America. There is no evidence that the disappearance of the Clovis culture was the result of the onset of the Younger Dryas, or that there was a population decline of Paleoindians following the end of the Clovis culture.JOURNAL, Holliday, Vance T., Daulton, Tyrone L., Bartlein, Patrick J., Boslough, Mark B., Breslawski, Ryan P., Fisher, Abigail E., Jorgeson, Ian A., Scott, Andrew C., Koeberl, Christian, Marlon, Jennifer R., Severinghaus, Jeffrey, Petaev, Michail I., Claeys, Philippe, December 2023, Comprehensive refutation of the Younger Dryas Impact Hypothesis (YDIH),weblink Earth-Science Reviews, en, 247, 104502, 10.1016/j.earscirev.2023.104502, 2023ESRv..24704502H, A number of authors have suggested that the Clovis culture is ancestral to other fluted point producing cultures in Central and South America, like the widespread Fishtail or Fell point style.

References

{{reflist}}

Further reading

• BOOK, Carlson, Roy L., Luke, Dalla Bona, 1996, Early Human Occupation in British Columbia, Vancouver, UBC Press, 978-0-7748-0536-0,
• BOOK, Dixon, E. James, 1999, Bones, Boats and Bison: Archeology and the First Colonization of Western North America, Albuquerque, University of New Mexico Press, 978-0-8263-2057-5, 42022335,
• JOURNAL, D. J., Kennett, J. P., Kennett, A., West, C., Mercer, S. S., Que Hee, L., Bement, T. E., Bunch, M., Sellers, W. S., Nanodiamonds in the Younger Dryas Boundary Sediment Layer, Wolbach, 206514910, Science (journal), Science, 2009, 323, 5910, 94, 10.1126/science.1162819, 19119227, 2009Sci...323...94K,weblink
• BOOK, Madsen, David B., Entering America: northeast Asia and Beringia before the last glacial maximum, University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City, 2004, 978-0-87480-786-8,
• JOURNAL, Schurr, Theodore G., 2000, Mitochondrial DNA and the Peopling of the New World, American Scientist, 88, 3, 246–253, 10.1511/2000.3.246, 0003-0996, 2000AmSci..88..246S, 7527715,
• BOOK, Stanford, Dennis, Dennis Stanford, Bradley, Bruce, 2002, Chapter 9 – Ocean Trails and Prairie Paths? Thoughts About Clovis Origins, Nina G. Jablonski, Edited proceedings of The Fourth Wattis Symposium, 2 October 1999, The First Americans: The Pleistocene Colonization of the New World, 255–271, San Francisco, California Academy of Sciences, 978-0-940228-49-8,
• BOOK, Stanford DJ, Bradley BA, Across Atlantic Ice: The Origin of America's Clovis Culture, University of California Press, 2012, 978-0-520-22783-5,
• JOURNAL, Straus, Lawrence G., April 2000, Solutrean Settlement of North America? A Review of Reality, American Antiquity, 65, 2, 219–226, 10.2307/2694056, 0002-7316, 2694056, 162349551,

External links

{{Commons category|Clovis culture}}

• Early human migration to Americas linked to climate change - Phys.org 6 February 2023
• Picture Gallery of the Paleolithic (reconstructional palaeoethnology), Libor Balák at the Czech Academy of Sciences, the Institute of Archaeology in Brno, The Center for Paleolithic and Paleoethnological Research
• New evidence suggests Stone Age hunters from Europe discovered America – by David Keys 28 February 2012
• Stone Age Columbus – BBC TV programme summary.
• WEB,weblink The Gault Site, Texas Beyond History,

{{Indigenous People of CO}}{{Indigenous peoples of Pre-Columbian Florida}}{{Pre-Columbian North America}}{{Prehistoric technology}}