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] 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 fibres may also have been heavily 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 assocation with mammoths,[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 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 America and South America.[10][11][12]
The Clovis culture represents the earliest widely recognised archaeological culture in North America.[13] 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.[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 Before Present, 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 through time.[15][20]
In South America, the widespread similar related 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]
^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. S2CID159572593.
^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.
^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. PMC4878442. PMID24522598.