Prehistoric culture in the Americas c. 11, 100 to 10,800 BCE
Clovis culture
Geographical range
North America
Period
Paleoindian
Dates
13,050 to 12,750 BP (11,100-10,800 BC)
Type site
Blackwater Draw, New Mexico
Followed by
Folsom 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.[1] Found in localities across the continent,[1] 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.[2] The most distinctive part of the Clovis culture toolkit are Clovis points,[3] 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 10 centimetres (3.9 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.[4]
The Clovis culture is thought to been created by highly mobile hunter-gatherer populations.[5] It is generally agreed that the producers of the Clovis culture were reliant on hunting big game (megafauna),[6] having the strongest association with mammoth, mastodon and bison,[7] alongside consuming smaller animals and plants.[6] 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.[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.[12][10]
In South America, the similar related Fishtail or Fell projectile point style was contemporaneous to the usage of Clovis points in North America,[1][13] and possibly developed from Clovis points.[14]
The Clovis culture represents the earliest widely recognised archaeological culture in North America.[15] 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.[16]
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.[17]
^ abcWaters, Michael R.; Stafford, Thomas W.; Carlson, David L. (23 October 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.
^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.
^Morrow, Juliet E. (3 April 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.
^Schroedl, Alan R. (3 April 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.
^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.
^ abThomas A. Jennings and Ashley M. Smallwood "The Clovis Record" The SAA Archaeological Record May 2019 • Volume 19 • Number 3
^ abWaguespack, 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.
^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.
^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.
^ abRaff, Jennifer (8 February 2022). "A Genetic Chronicle of the First Peoples in the Americas". Sapiens. Retrieved 9 October 2022.
^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. (13 February 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.
^Raff, J. A.; Bolnick, D. A. (13 February 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.
^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. (2 January 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.
^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.
^Eren, Metin I.; Story, Brett; Perrone, Alyssa; Bebber, Michelle; Hamilton, Marcus; Walker, Robert; Buchanan, Briggs (1 October 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.
^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. (2 January 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.
^Surovell, Todd A.; Boyd, Joshua R.; Haynes, C. Vance; Hodgins, Gregory W. L. (2 April 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.
the expectation of being later retrieved. Over 20 Clovis caches have been identified. The Clovisculture is thought to been created by highly mobile hunter-gatherer...
Clovis points are the characteristically fluted projectile points associated with the New World Clovisculture, a prehistoric Paleo-American culture. They...
explain the peopling of the Americas. According to Clovis First, the people associated with the Clovisculture were the first inhabitants of the Americas. This...
up Clovis in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. Clovis may refer to: Clovis (given name), the early medieval (Frankish) form of the name Louis Clovis I (c...
century to the Clovis theory based on this site and others, it was unusual for archaeologists to dig deeper than the layer of the Clovisculture, as they then...
significant questions remain unresolved. The "Clovis first theory" refers to the hypothesis that the Clovisculture represents the earliest human presence in...
ages of Paleoamerican artifacts, including those of likely Clovis, pre-Clovis, and post-Clovis age and their possible responses to environmental changes...
the Clovisculture phase, there is evidence that Clovis hunters targeted contemporary proboscideans based on archeological "kill sites." Clovis projectile...
and Clovis points share this commonality. The Clovisculture is a prehistoric Paleoamerican culture, named for distinct stone tools found near Clovis, New...
technological innovation within Clovis. There is a possible correlation, but not necessarily a causation, between the end of Clovis and the onset of Folsom with...
of 1932. The first Dent Clovis point was found November 5, 1932 and the in situ point was found July 7, 1933. The Clovisculture (about 13,300 - 12,900...
evidence showing that the human settlement of the Americas pre-dates the Clovisculture by roughly 1,000 years (or 5,000 years if the controversial 18,500 BP...
East Wenatchee Clovis Site (also called the Richey-Roberts Clovis Site or the Richey Clovis Cache) is a deposit of prehistoric Clovis points and other...
The Samara culture is an Eneolithic (Copper Age) culture dating to the turn of the 5th millennium BCE, at the Samara Bend of the Volga River (modern Russia)...
9500 BCE: People craft early Clovis spear points, knives, and skin scrapers from rock in New Mexico. 9250–8950 BCE: Clovis points – thin, fluted projectile...
thought to have hunted Columbian mammoths with Clovis pointed spears which were thrown or thrust. Although Clovis points have been found with Columbian mammoth...
period is present throughout the entire Predynastic period, and individual "cultures" must not be interpreted as separate entities but as largely subjective...
Europe (see Magdalenian culture) and enter North America from Eastern Siberia for the first time (see Paleo-Indians, pre-Clovisculture and Settlement of the...
the Paleo-Indians, and the earliest accepted dates are those of the Clovisculture sites, some 13,500 years ago. Globally, societies were hunter-gatherers...
the type of spear point that they used, the clovis point, which were discovered by archaeologists near Clovis, New Mexico. The points were attached to spears...
The Creswellian is a British Upper Palaeolithic culture named after the type site of Creswell Crags in Derbyshire by Dorothy Garrod in 1926. It is also...
next two centuries. Clovis is important in the historiography of France as "the first king of what would become France". Clovis succeeded his father...
Clovis-Solutrean link remains controversial and does not enjoy wide acceptance. The hypothesis is challenged by large gaps in time between the Clovis...
appearance of objects of copper and gold, a new ceramic culture and the immigration of Beaker culture people, heralding the end of the local late Neolithic...
died. The child's body is the only one discovered belonging to the Clovisculture. Fragments of a human skull found next to the Anzick-1 child. The person...
first defined such as the Hallstatt culture or Clovisculture.[citation needed] Since the term "culture" has many different meanings, scholars have also...