Clovis culture

Clovis culture
Map showing the extent of the Clovis culture
Geographical rangeNorth America
PeriodPaleoindian
Dates13,050–12,750 BP (11,100–10,800 BC)
Type siteBlackwater Draw, New Mexico
Followed byFolsom tradition (among others)

The Clovis culture is an archaeological culture from the Paleoindian period of North America, spanning around 13,050 to 12,750 years Before Present (BP).[1] The type site is Blackwater Draw locality No. 1 near Clovis, New Mexico, where stone tools were found alongside the remains of Columbian mammoths in 1929.[2] Clovis sites have been found across North America.[1] The most distinctive part of the Clovis culture toolkit are Clovis points,[3] which are projectile points with a fluted, lanceolate shape.[n 1] Clovis points are typically large, sometimes exceeding 10 centimetres (3.9 in) in length. These points were multifunctional, also serving as cutting tools. Other stone tools used by the Clovis culture include knives, scrapers, and bifacial tools, with bone tools including beveled rods and shaft wrenches, with possible ivory points also being identified. Hides, wood, and natural fibers may also have been utilized, though no direct evidence of this has been preserved. Clovis artifacts are often found grouped together in caches where they had been stored for later retrieval, and over 20 Clovis caches have been identified.[4]

The Clovis peoples are thought to have been highly mobile groups of hunter-gatherers.[5] It is generally agreed that these groups were reliant on hunting big game (megafauna),[6] having a particularly strong association with mammoths, and to a lesser extent with mastodon, bison, camel, and horse,[7] but they also consumed smaller animals and plants.[6] The Clovis hunters may have contributed to the Late Pleistocene megafauna extinctions in North America, though this idea has been subject to controversy.[7] Only one human burial has been directly associated with tools from the Clovis culture: Anzick-1, a young boy found buried in Montana,[8][9][10] who has a close genetic relation to some modern Native American populations, primarily in Central and South America.[10][11][12]

The Clovis culture represents the earliest widely recognised archaeological culture in North America[13] (though in western North America, it appears to have been contemporaneous with the Western Stemmed Tradition). 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 earlier than the oldest Clovis sites.[14]

The end of the Clovis culture may have been driven by the decline of the megafauna that the Clovis hunted as well as decreasing mobility, resulting in local differentiation of lithic and cultural traditions across North America.[15] Beginning around 12,750–12,600 years BP, the Clovis culture was succeeded by more regional cultures,[16] including the Folsom tradition in central North America,[16] the Cumberland point in mid/southern North America,[17] the Suwannee and Simpson points in the southeast,[18] and Gainey points in the Northeast–Great Lakes region.[19] The Clovis and Folsom traditions may have overlapped, perhaps for around 80–400 years.[20] The end of the Clovis culture is generally thought be the result of normal cultural change over time.[15][20]

In South America, the widespread similar Fishtail or Fell point style was contemporaneous to the usage of Clovis points in North America[1][21] and possibly developed from Clovis points.[22]

  1. ^ a b c Waters, Michael R.; Stafford, Thomas W.; Carlson, David L. (October 23, 2020). "The age of Clovis—13,050 to 12,750 cal yr B.P." Science Advances. 6 (43): eaaz0455. Bibcode:2020SciA....6..455W. doi:10.1126/sciadv.aaz0455. ISSN 2375-2548. PMC 7577710. PMID 33087355.
  2. ^ Boldurian, Anthony T. (January 2008). "Clovis Type-Site, Blackwater Draw, New Mexico: A History, 1929–2009". North American Archaeologist. 29 (1): 65–89. doi:10.2190/NA.29.1.d. ISSN 0197-6931.
  3. ^ Morrow, Juliet E. (April 3, 2019). "On Fluted Point Morphometrics, Cladistics, and the Origins of the Clovis Culture". PaleoAmerica. 5 (2): 191–205. doi:10.1080/20555563.2019.1618179. ISSN 2055-5563.
  4. ^ Schroedl, Alan R. (April 3, 2021). "The geographic origin of Clovis technology: Insights from Clovis biface caches". Plains Anthropologist. 66 (258): 120–148. doi:10.1080/00320447.2021.1888188. ISSN 0032-0447.
  5. ^ Ellis, Christopher (July 2013). "Clovis Lithic Technology: The Devil Is in the Details". Reviews in Anthropology. 42 (3): 127–160. doi:10.1080/00938157.2013.817867. ISSN 0093-8157. S2CID 161844234.
  6. ^ a b Thomas A. Jennings and Ashley M. Smallwood "The Clovis Record" The SAA Archaeological Record May 2019 • Volume 19 • Number 3
  7. ^ a b Waguespack, Nicole M.; Surovell, Todd A. (April 2003). "Clovis Hunting Strategies, or How to Make out on Plentiful Resources". American Antiquity. 68 (2): 333–352. doi:10.2307/3557083. ISSN 0002-7316. JSTOR 3557083.
  8. ^ 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. doi:10.1080/2052546.2001.11932062. S2CID 159572593.
  9. ^ 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.
  10. ^ a b Raff, Jennifer (February 8, 2022). "A Genetic Chronicle of the First Peoples in the Americas". Sapiens. Retrieved October 9, 2022.
  11. ^ Raff, J. A.; Bolnick, D. A. (February 13, 2014). "Palaeogenomics: Genetic roots of the first Americans". Nature. 506 (7487): 162–163. Bibcode:2014Natur.506..162R. doi:10.1038/506162a. PMID 24522593. S2CID 4445278.
  12. ^ 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.; 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.; Sicheritz-Ponten, T.; Barnes, I.; Collins, M.; Orlando, L.; Balloux, F.; Manica, A.; Gupta, R.; Metspalu, M.; Bustamante, C. D.; Jakobsson, M.; Nielsen, R.; Willerslev, E. (February 13, 2014). "The genome of a Late Pleistocene human from a Clovis burial site in western Montana". Nature. 506 (7487): 225–229. Bibcode:2014Natur.506..225R. doi:10.1038/nature13025. PMC 4878442. PMID 24522598.
  13. ^ Eren, Metin I.; Story, Brett; Perrone, Alyssa; Bebber, Michelle; Hamilton, Marcus; Walker, Robert; Buchanan, Briggs (October 1, 2020). "North American Clovis Point Form and Performance: An Experimental Assessment of Penetration Depth". Lithic Technology. 45 (4): 263–282. doi:10.1080/01977261.2020.1794358. ISSN 0197-7261.
  14. ^ 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. (January 2, 2022). "Current Understanding of the Earliest Human Occupations in the Americas: Evaluation of Becerra-Valdivia and Higham (2020)". PaleoAmerica. 8 (1): 62–76. doi:10.1080/20555563.2021.1978721. ISSN 2055-5563.
  15. ^ a b Haynes, Gary (2002). The Early Settlement of North America: The Clovis Era. New York: Cambridge University Press. p. 52. ISBN 978-0-521-52463-6.
  16. ^ a b Surovell, Todd A.; Boyd, Joshua R.; Haynes, C. Vance; Hodgins, Gregory W. L. (April 2, 2016). "On the Dating of the Folsom Complex and its Correlation with the Younger Dryas, the End of Clovis, and Megafaunal Extinction". PaleoAmerica. 2 (2): 81–89. doi:10.1080/20555563.2016.1174559. ISSN 2055-5563.
  17. ^ Cite error: The named reference :20 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  18. ^ Cite error: The named reference :21 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  19. ^ Cite error: The named reference :22 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  20. ^ a b 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". American Antiquity. 87 (3): 567–580. doi:10.1017/aaq.2021.153. ISSN 0002-7316.
  21. ^ 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. (January 2, 2022). "Current Understanding of the Earliest Human Occupations in the Americas: Evaluation of Becerra-Valdivia and Higham (2020)". PaleoAmerica. 8 (1): 62–76. doi:10.1080/20555563.2021.1978721. ISSN 2055-5563. S2CID 239834259.
  22. ^ Fiedel, Stuart J. (July 2017). "The Anzick genome proves Clovis is first, after all". Quaternary International. 444: 4–9. Bibcode:2017QuInt.444....4F. doi:10.1016/j.quaint.2017.06.022.


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