Clovis culture is characterized by the manufacture of "
Clovis points" and distinctive bone and ivory tools, and it is represented by hundreds of sites, from which over 10,000 Clovis points have been recovered.[3] Knowledge of the Clovis culture has primarily been gathered from
North America.[4] In
South America, the similar related
Fishtail or Fell projectile point style was contemporaneous to the usage of Clovis points in North America,[5][6] and possibly developed from Clovis points.[7]
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.[8][9][10] Paleogenetic analyses of Anzick-1's ancient
nuclear,
mitochondrial, and
Y-chromosome DNA[11] reveal that Anzick-1 is closely related to some modern Native American populations, including those in Southern North America,
Central America, and South America and populations in
Central Asia and
Siberia, which lends support to the
Beringia or coastal Pacific hypotheses that they were responsible for the initial
settlement of the Americas.[12][10]
The Clovis culture is traditionally considered to have been based on highly mobile
hunter-gatherer populations that heavily engaged in
big game hunting, though some recent scholarship has questioned how reliant Clovis hunters were on big game.[13] Some recent experimental research casts doubt on whether Clovis points were well-suited for hunting mammoth at all, and suggests they were more often used as knives;[14][15] however, a counterargument supports the traditional interpretation of points as effective hunting weapons used on large game, including mammoth and other proboscideans.[16]
The Clovis culture was replaced by several more localized regional societies from the
Younger Dryas cold-climate period onward. Post-Clovis cultures include the
Folsom tradition, Gainey,
Suwannee,
Simpson,
Plainview-
Goshen,
Cumberland, and Redstone. Each of these is thought to derive directly from Clovis, in some cases apparently differing only in the length of the fluting on their projectile points. Although this is generally held to be the result of normal cultural change through time,[17] numerous other reasons have been suggested as driving forces to explain changes in the archaeological record, such as the Younger Dryas postglacial
climate change, and the decline and extinction of North American
megafauna as part of the
Quaternary extinction event.[18][19] The potential causal role of Clovis hunters in the extinction of the megafauna has been the subject of controversy.[20]
After the discovery of several Clovis sites in western North America in the 1930s (such as Blackwater Draw, NM and Dent, CO), the Clovis people came to be regarded as the first human inhabitants who created a widespread culture in the
Americas and the ancestors of most of the
indigenous peoples of the Americas.[21][22][23]
The oldest claimed human archaeological site in the Americas is the
Pedra Furada hearths in
Brazil, controversially dated to 19,000 to 30,000 years before the earliest Clovis sites.[27][28][29]
Description
A hallmark of the toolkit associated with the Clovis culture is the distinctively shaped, fluted-stone
spear point known as the
Clovis point. The Clovis point is
bifacial and typically fluted on both sides. Clovis tools were produced during a roughly 300-year period.[30] 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 diverse population groups.[31]
The culture is named after artifacts found between 1932 and 1936 at
Blackwater Locality No. 1, an
archaeological site between the towns of Clovis and Portales, New Mexico. These finds were deemed especially important due to their direct association with
mammoth species and the extinct Bison antiquus. The in situ finds of 1936 and 1937 included four stone Clovis points, two long bone points with impact damage, stone blades, a portion of a Clovis blade core, and several cutting tools made on stone flakes.[31] Clovis sites have since been identified throughout much of the contiguous United States, as well as in Mexico and parts of Central America, and even into northern South America.[32]
Clovis people are generally accepted to have hunted
mammoths, as well as
extinct bison,
mastodon,
gomphotheres,
ground sloths,
tapir, Camelops, horse, and other smaller animals. More than 125 species of plants and animals are known to have been used by Clovis people in the portion of the Western Hemisphere they inhabited.[33][34]
The oldest Clovis site in North America has been suggested to be
El Fin del Mundo in northwestern
Sonora,
Mexico, discovered during a 2007 survey.[35] At the site, remains of the gomphothere (elephant relative) Cuvieronius were found associated with Clovis points. In a 2013 study it was estimated to date to 13,390 years
Before Present (BP).[35] However, other authors have contested these dates, suggesting the site is likely younger than this, with a 2020 study finding that all reliably datable Clovis sites span from around 13,050 to 12,750 years BP.[5]
The most commonly held perspective on the end of the Clovis culture is that a decline in the availability of
megafauna, combined with an overall increase in a less mobile population, led to local differentiation of lithic and cultural traditions across the Americas.[17][36] After this time, Clovis-style fluted points were replaced by other fluted-point traditions (such as the
Folsom culture) with an essentially uninterrupted sequence across North and Central America. An effectively continuous cultural adaptation proceeds from the Clovis period through the ensuing Middle and Late Paleoindian periods.[37]
Whether the Clovis culture drove the mammoth, and other species, to
extinction via overhunting – the
Pleistocene overkill hypothesis – is still an open, and controversial, theory.[38] It has also been hypothesized that the Clovis culture experienced decline in the wake of the
Younger Dryas cold phase.[39] This "cold shock", lasting roughly 1,500 years, affected many parts of the world, including North America. This appears to have been triggered by a vast amount of meltwater – possibly from
Lake Agassiz – emptying into the North Atlantic, disrupting the
thermohaline circulation.[19]
The
Younger Dryas Impact hypothesis, or Clovis Comet hypothesis, originally proposed that a large
air burst or earth
impact from a comet or comets initiated the Younger Dryas cold period about 12,900 years ago (10,900 14C years ago).[40][18][41] This hypothesis has been largely refuted, with research showing that most of the original findings cannot be replicated by other scientists. This hypothesis is criticized because of its misinterpretation of data and the lack of confirmatory evidence.[42][43][44][45]
Proponents of the hypothesis have responded, disputing the accusation of irreproducibility of their findings.[46][47][48][49][50][51] In 2013, a group from Harvard reported finding a layer of increased
platinum (Pt) composition exactly at the Younger Dryas onset in a
Greenland ice core, followed in 2017 by a report that the Pt spike had been also been found at an additional 11 continental Younger Dryas sites.[52][53] Since then, the lead author of the Greenland Pt paper has coauthored a comprehensive rebuttal of the impact hypothesis which shows problems with dating and reveals that the Pt anomaly is later than the climate change and therefore could not have caused it.[54]
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 situFolsom point with the extinct B. antiquus bones. This confirmation of a human presence in the Americas during the Pleistocene inspired many people to start looking for evidence of early humans.[55] Another earlier example at Folsom was discovered by
George McJunkin, a cowboy, who found an
ancient bison (Bison antiquus, an extinct relative of the
American bison) skeleton in 1908 after a flash flood.[56] The site was first excavated in 1926 under the direction of Harold Cook and Jesse Figgins.
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.[57]
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.[58]
The first report of professional work at the Blackwater Draw Clovis site was published in the November 25th issue of Science News (V22 #601) in 1932.[59] 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 America[60]) 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 November 5, 1932, and the in situ point was found July 7, 1933.[61] The in situ Clovis point from Burnet Cave was excavated in late August, 1931 (and was reported in early 1932).[62]
A
Clovis burial site was found in
Montana in 1968. It contained the remains of a two-year-old child they named
Anzick-1, or Anzick boy. Analysis of
DNA recovered from the remains indicates that Anzick-1 is more closely related to all of the
indigenous peoples of the Americas than to any other group.[11]
Available genetic data show that the Clovis people are the direct ancestors of roughly 80% of all living Native American populations in North and South America, with the remainder descended from ancestors who entered in later waves of migration.[63][64] As reported in February 2014, DNA from the 12,600-year-old remains of
Anzick boy, found in Montana, has affirmed this connection to the peoples of the Americas. In addition, this DNA analysis affirmed genetic connections back to ancestral peoples of northeast Asia. This adds weight to the theory that peoples migrated across a land bridge from Siberia to North America.[23]
This theory, known as "Clovis First", had been the predominant hypothesis among archaeologists in the second half of the 20th century. According to Clovis First, the people associated with the Clovis culture were the first inhabitants of the Americas. The primary support for this claim was that no solid evidence of pre-Clovis human habitation 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 ice age when there was a period of lowered sea levels, then made their way southward through an ice-free corridor east of the
Rocky Mountains, located in present-day Western Canada, as the
glaciers retreated.[65]
This hypothesis came to be challenged by
ongoing studies that suggest pre-Clovis human occupation of the Americas.[66] In 2011, following the excavation of an occupation site at
Buttermilk Creek, Texas, a group of scientists identified the existence "of an occupation older than Clovis."[24][67] At the site in Buttermilk, archaeologists discovered evidence of hunter-gatherer group living and the making of projectile spear points, blades, choppers, and other stone tools. The tools found were made from a local
chert and could be dated back to as early as 15,000 years ago.[67]
According to researchers Michael Waters and Thomas Stafford of
Texas A&M University, new radiocarbon dates place Clovis remains from the continental United States in a shorter time window beginning 450 years later than the previously accepted threshold (13,200 to 12,900 BP).[21]
Since the early 2010s, the
scientific consensus has changed to acknowledge the presence of pre-Clovis cultures in the Americas, ending the "Clovis first" consensus.[68][69][70]
^Warnica, James M., "Blackwater Locality No. 1: An Important Archaeological Site in Eastern New Mexico", Central States Archaeological Journal, vol. 52, no. 1, pp. 10–11, 2005
^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.
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^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.
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abRasmussen, 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.;
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^Pearson, Georges; Ream, Joshua (2005). "Clovis on the Caribbean Coast of Venezuela". Current Research in the Pleistocene. 22: 28–31.
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^Haynes, G. (2009). "Estimates of Clovis-Era Megafaunal Populations and Their Extinction Risks". American Megafaunal Extinctions at the End of the Pleistocene. Vertebrate Paleobiology and Paleoanthropology. Springer Science + Business Media B.V. pp. 39–53.
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^Lepper, Bradley T. (1999). "Pleistocene Peoples of Midcontinental North America". In Bonnichsen, Robson; Turnmire, Karen (eds.). Ice Age People of North America. Corvallis: Oregon State University Press. pp. 362–394.
^Flannery, T. (2001). The Eternal Frontier: an ecological history of North America and its peoples. New York: Grove Press. pp. 173–185.
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Further reading
Carlson, Roy L.; Luke, Dalla Bona, eds. (1996). Early Human Occupation in British Columbia. Vancouver: UBC Press.
ISBN978-0-7748-0536-0.
Madsen, David B. (2004). Entering America: northeast Asia and Beringia before the last glacial maximum. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press.
ISBN978-0-87480-786-8.
Stanford, Dennis; Bradley, Bruce (2002). "Chapter 9 – Ocean Trails and Prairie Paths? Thoughts About Clovis Origins". In Nina G. Jablonski (ed.). The First Americans: The Pleistocene Colonization of the New World. Edited proceedings of The Fourth Wattis Symposium, 2 October 1999. San Francisco:
California Academy of Sciences. pp. 255–271.
ISBN978-0-940228-49-8.
Stanford DJ, Bradley BA (2012). Across Atlantic Ice: The Origin of America's Clovis Culture. University of California Press.
ISBN978-0-520-22783-5.