Clovis People






The Clovis culture is a prehistoric Native American culture that first appears in the archaeological record of North America around 13,500 years ago, at the end of the last ice age.

The culture is named for artifacts found near Clovis, New Mexico, where the first evidence of this tool complex was excavated in 1932. Earlier evidence included a mammoth skeleton with a spear-point in its ribs, found by a cowboy in 1926 near Folsom, New Mexico. Clovis sites have since been identified throughout all of the contiguous United States, as well as Mexico and Central America.

The Clovis people, also known as Paleo-Indians, are generally regarded as the the first human inhabitants of the New World, and ancestors of all the indigenous cultures of North and South America. However, this view has been recently contested by various archaeological finds which are claimed to be much older.

There are a number of controversial sites vying for the position of the earliest site in the region. The best evidence, however, suggests that a society of hunters and gatherers known as Clovis People were the first to settle in the Southwest, probably sometime before 9,500 B.C. The Clovis People were so named after the New Mexico town, site of the first discovery in 1932, near Clovis, N.M.

Since the mid 20th century, the standard theory among archaeologists has been that the Clovis people were the first inhabitants of the Americas. The primary support of the theory was that no solid evidence of pre-Clovis human inhabitation has been found. According to the standard accepted theory, the Clovis people crossed the Beringia land bridge over the Bering Strait from Siberia to Alaska during the period of lowered sea levels during the ice age, then made their way southward through an ice-free corridor east of the Rocky Mountains in present-day western Canada as the glaciers retreated.

The culture lasted for about a half a millennium, from about 11,200 to 10,900 years ago. People of the Clovis culture were successful, efficient big-game hunters and foragers. Judging from sites on the North American Great Plains, the Clovis people were skilled hunters of huge animals, especially Ice Age mammoths and mastodons.

It is generally accepted that Clovis people hunted mammoth: sites abound where Clovis points are found mixed in with mammoth remains. Whether they drove the mammoth to extinction via overhunting them - the so-called Pleistocene overkill hypothesis - is still an open, and controversial, question, keeping in mind that Archaeology is purely a theoretical endeavor.

A single animal could provide meat for weeks on end, and if dried, for much of the winter, also. Not that the people used all the meat they butchered. Bison carcasses were more heavily utilized and less was left at the kill sites. Presumably, the hides, tusks, bones, and pelts were used to make household possessions, subsistence tools, for shelter, even clothing.




Clovis Tools and Points

Projectile Points

Clovis tool kits were highly effective, lightweight, and portable, as befits people who were constantly on the move. Their stone technology was based on precious, fine-grained rock that came from widely separated outcrops, ones that were exploited for thousands of years by later people. Their most famous, celebrated, and distinctive part of their toolkit were their fluted projectile points.

A hallmark of Clovis culture is the use of a distinctively-shaped fluted rock spear point, known as the Clovis point. The Clovis point is distinctively bifacial and fluted on both sides, a feature that possibly allowed the point to be mounted onto a spear in a way so that the point would snap off on impact. Archaeologists do not agree on whether the widespread presence of these artifacts indicates the proliferation of a single people, or the adoption of a superior technology by non-Clovis people.

The typical Clovis point is leaf shaped, with parallel or slightly convex sides and a concave base. The edges of the basal portions are ground somewhat, probably to prevent the edge from severing the hafting cord. Clovis points range in length from 1 1/2 to 5 inches (4 to 13 centimetres) and are heavy and fluted, though the fluting rarely exceeds half the length. Some eastern variants of Clovis, called Ohio, Cumberland, or Suwannee, depending on their origin, are somewhat fish tailed and also narrower relative to length.

Exactly how these points were hafted is unknown, but the men probably carried a series of them mounted in wooden or bone foreshafts that worked loose from the spear shaft once the head was buried in its quarry. The Clovis people became successful hunters, often killing mammoth, mastodons, huge bison, horses and camels throughout the great plains of North America and into northern Mexico.

Also associated with Clovis are such implements as bone tools, hammerstones, scrapers, and unfluted projectile points. Besides projectile points, the Clovis people used bifacially trimmed points and other woodworking and butchering artifacts, as well as flakes used simply as sharp-edged, convenient tools in their struck-off form.




Hunting




Botany

The Clovis People were also botanists well-versed in the use of plants for food and equipment. They were geologists with a keen ability to seek out the best sources of New World flint for their finely crafted points and tools, and of ochre for use as a red pigment.




Settlements

Clovis settled successfully into a broad range of environments. And after half a century of research, questions and disagreements still surround this short-lived, but extremely widespread North American culture.




Origins - History

Known as "Clovis First," the predominant hypothesis among archaeologists in the latter half of the 20th century had been that the people associated with the Clovis culture were the first inhabitants of the Americas. The primary support for this was that no solid evidence of pre-Clovis human inhabitation had been found.

According to the standard accepted theory, the Clovis people crossed the Beringia land bridge over the Bering Strait from Siberia to Alaska during the period of lowered sea levels during the ice age, then made their way southward through an ice-free corridor east of the Rocky Mountains in present-day western Canada as the glaciers retreated. This hypothesis came to be challenged by studies suggesting a Pre-Clovis Human occupation of the Americas until in 2011, following the excavation of an occupation site at Buttermilk Creek, Texas, a prominent group of scientists claimed to have definitely established the existence "of an occupation older than Clovis."

Once thought to span thousands of years, the Clovis era is now dated to a few hundred, roughly from 11,400 to 10,900 radiocarbon years ago (13,325 - 12,975 cal BP)

In many ways, the Clovis people seem to appear by magic on the North American continent. The assumption has been that their ancestors moved south from Alaska, pursuing their favorite prey, the mammoth. However, there are no Clovis sites in either Alaska or Canada; likewise, there are no technological antecedants for Clovis anywhere in the Americas nor are their any technological antecedants in northeast Asia, extreme eastern Asia, or anywhere in Asia. So from where did the Clovis people come - or at least, from where did their technology of producing finely crafted, fluted spear points, come?

Some scientists have speculated that the ancestors of the Clovis people perfected their distinctive toolkits and fluting techniques while in route, via the (in)famous "ice-free corridor", from Alaska to the great plains of North America.

Other scientists have suggested that the ancestors of the Clovis people lived South of North America since there are isolated hints of human settlement earlier than 11,500 years ago (the earliest time Clovis appears in North America), at places like Monte Verde in southern Chile and Pedra Furada in Brazil. Alternately, there are a few sites in North America which pre-date Clovis, such as Meadowcroft Rockshelter, in western Pennsylvannia, and Pendejo Cave in New Mexico, and it may be that these sites represent not only a Pre-Clovis population, but one technologically ancestral to Clovis.

Currently several scientists have suggested that the technological ancestors of Clovis lie in Europe, specifically on the Iberian peninsula and France, with the so-called Solutrean culture.

According to archaeologist Dr. Bruce Bradley, both the Solutreans and the Clovis folks made beveled, crosshatched bone rods, idiosyncratic spear points of mammoth ivory, and triangular stone scrapers.

And while independent invention could account for these similarities (i.e., finding the same solutions to the same questions), the oldest Clovis tools are not on the Great Plains, or in the Great Basin or Southwest of the U.S. - where they should be if the Clovis people trickled in from Siberia and then fanned out across the continent - but rather they are found in the eastern and southeastern regions of the U.S. It's possible that Ice Age Europeans may have crossed into North America by boats, hugging the edges of the great ice sheets that stretched from Greenland westward to what is now upstate New York.

Around 10,500 years ago, Clovis abruptly vanish from the archaeological record, replaced by a myriad of different local hunter-gatherer cultures. Why this happened no one knows but their disappearance coincides with the mass extinction of Ice Age big-game animals, leading to speculation that Clovis people either hunted these mammals and drove them into extinction or over-hunting eliminated a "keystone species" (usually the mammoths or mastodon) and this led to environmental collapse and a more general extinction.

Another theory about the Clovis people is that these people caused the extinction in North America at the end of the Pleistocene. Researchers who support this view generally favor one of two explanations. The first is that human over-hunting directly caused the extinction. The second is that over-hunting eliminated a "keystone species" (usually the mammoths or mastodon) and this led to environmental collapse and a more general extinction.




In the News ...


Ancient DNA evidence reveals two unknown migrations from North to South America   Science Daily - November 8, 2018
A team has used genome-wide ancient DNA data to revise Central and South American history. Their analysis of DNA from 49 individuals spanning about 10,000 years in Belize, Brazil, the Central Andes, and southern South America has concluded that the majority of Central and South American ancestry arrived from at least three different streams of people entering from North America, all arising from one ancestral lineage of migrants who crossed the Bering Strait.




Ancient DNA analysis yields unexpected insights about peoples of Central, South America   PhysOrg - November 8, 2018
An international team of researchers has revealed unexpected details about the peopling of Central and South America by studying the first high-quality ancient DNA data from those regions. The findings include two previously unknown genetic exchanges between North and South America, one of which represents a continent-wide population turnover. The results suggest that the people who spread the Clovis culture, the first widespread archaeological culture of North America, had a major demographic impact further south than previously appreciated. The authors analyzed genome-wide data from 49 individuals from Central and South America, some as old as 11,000 years. Previously, the only genomes that had been reported from this region and that provided sufficient quality data to analyze were less than 1,000 years old. By comparing ancient and modern genomes from the Americas and other parts of the globe, the researchers were able to obtain qualitatively new insights into the early history of Central and South America.




History of early settlement and survival in Andean highlands revealed by ancient genomes   PhysOrg - November 8, 2018
A multi-center study of the genetic remains of people who settled thousands of years ago in the Andes Mountains of South America reveals a complex picture of human adaptation from early settlement, to a split about 9,000 years ago between high and lowland populations, to the devastating exposure to European disease in the 16th-century colonial period.




DNA of world's oldest natural mummy unlocks secrets of Ice Age tribes in the Americas   Science Daily - November 8, 2018
A legal battle over a 10,600 year old ancient skeleton -- called the 'Spirit Cave Mummy' -- has ended after advanced DNA sequencing found it was related to a Native American tribe.




Who Were the 1st Americans? 11,000-Year-Old DNA Reveals Clues   Live Science - November 8, 2018

People genetically linked to the Clovis culture, one of the earliest continent-wide cultures in North America, made it down to South America as far back as 11,000 years ago. Then they mysteriously vanished around 9,000 years ago, new research reveals. Where did they go? It appears that another ancient group of people replaced them, but it's unclear how or why this happened, the researchers said.




Clovis site: Montana burial site answers questions about early humans   Science Daily - June 19, 2018
Scientists have shown that at the Anzick site in Montana - the only known Clovis burial site - the skeletal remains of a young child and the antler and stone artifacts found there were buried at the same time, raising new questions about the early inhabitants of North America.




Honanki Ruins: Photos Reveal Sprawling, Ancient Pueblos   Live Science - December 18, 2017
Early native people have long made their homes in the east-central region of today's Arizona. The Clovis People (11,500 B.C. to 9000 B.C.) once hunted mammoths, giant sloths, bison and camels here in what was a savanna-like climate. When the big-game animals disappeared around 9000 B.C., so too did the Clovis people. Yet, the land was still rich in natural resources, and soon groups of archaic people with their hunting-gathering nomadic lifestyles moved into and across the land.

The Honanki Heritage Site is a cliff dwelling and rock art site located in the Coconino National Forest, about 15 miles (24 km) west of Sedona, Arizona. The Sinagua people of the Ancient Pueblo Peoples, and ancestors of the Hopi people, lived here from about 1100 to 1300 AD. The Palatki Heritage Site is nearby, also in the Coconino National Forest.




Anthropologist group suggests first humans to the Americas arrived via the kelp highway   PhysOrg - November 3, 2017
A team of anthropologists from several institutions in the U.S. has offered a Perspective piece in the journal Science outlining current theories regarding the first humans to populate the Americas. In their paper, they scrap the conventional view that Clovis people making their way across a Bering land bridge were the first to arrive in the Americas - more recent evidence suggests others arrived far earlier, likely using boats to travel just offshore.




The First Americans May Have Migrated Along a Coastal ÔKelp HighwayÕ   Seeker - November 3, 2017
A coastal migration into North America along the Pacific Rim could be the most likely initial colonization event on the continent.




Comet theory false: Doesn't explain Ice Age cold snap, Clovis changes, animal extinction   Science Daily - May 14, 2014
New research has demonstrated again that a comet didn't spark climate change at the end of the Ice Age, killing the Clovis peoples and causing mass animal extinction. Supposed impact indicators are too old or too young to indicate an ancient comet that proponents claim sparked a late Ice Age calamity, according to new research. The researchers found previous dating of Ice Age boundary layers by proponents contained widespread errors.




Prehistoric Boy May Be Native American 'Missing Link'   Live Science - February 13, 2014
A prehistoric boy's DNA now suggests that ancient toolmakers long thought of as the first Americans may serve as a kind of "missing link" between Native Americans and the rest of the world, researchers say. The findings reveal these prehistoric toolmakers are the direct ancestors of many contemporary Native Americans, and are closely related to all Native Americans. Scientists investigated a prehistoric culture known as the Clovis, named after sites discovered near Clovis, N.M. Centuries of cold, nicknamed the "Big Freeze," helped wipe out the Clovis, as well as most of the large mammals in North America. The artifacts of the Clovis are found south of the giant ice sheets that once covered Canada, in most of North America, though not in South America.




Ancient American's genome mapped   BBC - February 13, 2014
Present-day Native Americans are descended from some of the continent's earliest settlers, a genetic study suggests. Scientists sequenced the genome of a one-year-old boy who died in what is now Montana about 12,500 years ago. Some researchers have raised questions about the origins of early Americans, with one theory even proposing a link to Ice Age Europeans. But the Nature study places the origins of these ancient people in Asia. The infant was a member of the Clovis people, a widespread, sophisticated Ice Age culture in North America. They appeared in America about 13,000 years ago and hunted mammoth, mastodon and bison. The boy's remains, uncovered at the Anzick Site in Montana in 1968, were associated with distinctive Clovis stone tools. In fact, it is the only known skeleton directly linked to artifacts from this culture. But the origins of the Clovis people, and who they are related to today, has been the subject of intense discussion.




Did a Comet Really Chill and Kill Clovis Culture?   Live Science - February 28, 2013
A comet crashing into the Earth some 13,000 years ago was thought to have spelled doom to a group of early North American people, and possibly the extinction of ice age beasts in the region. But the space rock was wrongly accused, according to a group of 16 scientists in fields ranging from archaeology to crystallography to physics, who have offered counter evidence to the existence of such a collision.




Paleo CSI: Early Hunters Left Mastodon Murder Weapon Behind   Live Science - October 21, 2011
A new look at a very old mastodon skeleton has turned up evidence of the first known hunting weapon in North America, a tool made of bone that predates previously known hunting technology by 800 years. The sharp bit of bone, found embedded in a mastodon rib unearthed in the 1970s, has long been controversial. Archaeologists have argued about both the date assigned to the bone - around 14,000 years old - and about whether the alleged weapon was really shaped by human hands. But now, researchers say it's likely that 13,800 years ago, hunters slaughtered elephant-like mastodons using bony projectile points not much bigger around than pencils, sharpened to needle-like tips.




Old American theory is 'speared'   BBC - October 21, 2011
An ancient bone with a projectile point lodged within it appears to up-end - once and for all - a long-held idea of how the Americas were first populated. The rib, from a tusked beast known as a mastodon, has been dated precisely to 13,800 years ago. This places it before the so-called Clovis hunters, who many academics had argued were the North American continent's original inhabitants.




No evidence for ancient comet or Clovis catastrophe, archaeologists say   PhysOrg - September 29, 2010
New research challenges the controversial theory that the impact of an ancient comet devastated the Clovis people, one of the earliest known cultures to inhabit North America.




Clovis Mammoth Hunters: Out With a Whimper or a Bang?   Science Daily - April 12, 2010
A team of researchers from the University of Arizona has revisited evidence pointing to a cataclysmic event thought by many scientists to have wiped out the North American megafauna -- such as mammoths, saber tooth cats, giant ground sloths and Dire wolves -- along with the Clovis hunter-gatherer culture some 13,000 years ago.




Ancient Americans took cold snap in their stride   PhysOrg - April 12, 2010
Paleoindian groups occupied North America throughout the Younger Dryas interval, which saw a rapid return to glacial conditions approximately 11,000 years ago. Until now, it has been assumed that cooling temperatures and their impact on communities posed significant adaptive challenges to those groups.

The Lithic peoples or Paleo-Indians, are the earliest known humans of the Americas.
The period's name derives from the appearance of "lithic flaked" stone tools.




'Footprints' debate to run and run   BBC - January 16, 2006
It was a sensational discovery - human footprints said to be 40,000 years old, preserved by volcanic ash in an abandoned quarry in Mexico. The announcement, in July last year, created a flurry of excitement, but was then promptly dismissed by a second team of researchers who re-dated the rocks at 1.3 million years old, impossibly ancient to bear human traces. The original claim has not gone away, however. The first widespread evidence for the human occupation of North America came from the town of Clovis in New Mexico. The beautiful fluted stone-spearpoints made by the Clovis people are found on many sites and date back 11,500 years or so. They are believed to have been left by people who crossed a land bridge that once existed between Siberia and Alaska. But there is an increasing body of evidence for earlier occupation of the Americas, dating back to a time when the overland route through the ice would have been impossible.




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