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The Clovis Hunters A Pragmatic & Skilled Culture Swept Across North America By Jack L. Hofman |
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The First Americans Introduction: The
Puzzle of the First Americans Panhandle Prehistory
Series: 11,000
Years |
They were certainly pragmatic, realistic, and able to live effectively – through their own ingenuity – in previously unknown territories. Clovis people were creative enough to make their technology work for many generations, so we should not be surprised if they did not always behave as we believe they should have. 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. Robert Kelly of the University of Wyoming and Larry Todd of Colorado State University have proposed that Clovis people focused on specific "high-return" and well-understood resources, such as mammoth and mastodon, rather than learn to exploit a broad range of species encountered in newly colonized territories. In contrast, David Meltzer of Southern Methodist University suggests Clovis hunters were broad-spectrum foragers tapping a diversity of resource that only occasionally included large animals. Multiple or diverse Clovis adaptations might be likely. The distribution of Clovis artifacts may be taken as support for either model, and while each emphasizes distinctive overall behavioral patterns, they are not necessarily mutually exclusive or incompatible. Clovis economy was almost certainly based on a diverse array of resources, which does not preclude an emphasis of large-game hunting. 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). Much of the refinement in Clovis dating is a result of work by C. Vance Haynes of the University of Arizona. Clovis hunters are recognized by a few diagnostic artifacts, especially the famous fluted points, and a distinctive technology for making stone tools. The projectile points, based on usewear analysis, apparently served a variety of functions beyond their use on atlatl (spear-thrower) darts, including cutting and butchering. Another key Clovis diagnostic are beveled-based (tapered) bone points, some of which apparently served as projectile points and others as parts of segmented foreshafts of spears and darts. These distinctive bone and ivory artifacts have been found repeatedly in association with Clovis points and, along with a perforated "bone wrench" from Murray Springs, Arizona, show striking similarities to Upper Paleolithic assemblages of Europe and Eurasia. Clovis' distinctive biface-flaking technology - the technique for shaping both sides of stone tools - was described in detail by Bruce Bradley and George Frison in 1982. Clovis flintknappers were adept at removing broad, flat flakes from large bifacial cores, typically removing a thin layer of flint completely across one face of the stone Clovis artifacts are widely and unevenly dispersed in North and Central America, with the cultural range apparently limited primarily by continental and mountain glaciers, lakes, and associated inhospitable terrain features. Clovis people definitely were not limited to or focused upon any specific geographic areas. Yet, Clovis points are notably more common in the Southern and Central plains than in the Northern Plains, and more Clovis artifacts come from the northern Great Basin and northwestern United States than the Northern Plains. The notion that Clovis originated in or spread throughout North America from a point of origin in the Northern Plains (within an ice-free corridor between the continental glaciers) is not supported by the distribution of finds. Clovis may actually have spread from south to north across the Great Plains. Beyond economic pursuits, hints of Clovis art and ritual are appearing. Small, engraved stone tablets from the Gault site in central Texas have been reported by Michael Collins and others. The purpose of these tablet pieces is yet to be established. The use of red ochre as a pigment and potentially for other uses is well documented at several sites. Much remains to be learned about this intriguing culture that briefly ruled the North American continent. Jack L. Hofman is Associate Professor at the University of Kansas. |
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