Clovis Indians 11,500 B.C. - 10,900 B.C.
In 1929, a spear point was found imbedded with the skeletal remains of
mammoths near Clovis, New Mexico. Paleo-Indians occupying this site
were classified as Clovis Indians. This classification was based on the lithic
(stone) points associated with mammoths.
Clovis Point
Clovis points are typically relatively large with single or multiple flutes.
The grooved, or fluted, area rarely extend more than a third of the way up
the body. Many archeologists believe the Clovis Indians are the first
known group of people to populate the Americas. As more Paleo-Indian
sites were located, archeologists set up a stringent criteria to qualify as a
Clovis site. Any site not meeting all of the Clovis criteria was not
considered as being early than Clovis. Despite this "stringent criteria",
there is growing evidence of small groups of people in the Americas long
before the Clovis Indians.
Dating back to 11500 B.C., isolated Clovis sites have been located in North
America from Alaska to Panama. It is interesting to note more Clovis
points have been found east of the Mississippi than west of the Mississippi,
but many of these points could have been carried there by other
Indians...the only way to date a stone point is its association with an
organic substance i.e. a wooly Mammoth.
Pennsylvania Paleo-Indian Tools
Obsidian (2007)
Flaked
The Paleo-Indian tool picture is taken from the Pennsylvania Archeology
web page, which is an excellent site. These pictures are used to
demonstrate a real problems with dating sites based on "tools", and is one
of the reasons some archeologist reject pre-Clovis sites based on the type
of "tools" found. Using pieces of flint as knives or scrapers does not mean
they were chipped by Indians. The natural flaking of obsidian results in
sharp pieces, even with "thumb or finger grooves". The flaked obsidian
pictured above was picked up off the ground near Kilgore, Idaho last
summer.
The next paragraphs is paraphrased from the Pennsylvania
Archeological website. Meadowcroft Rockshelter in Washington County,
Pennsylvania dates to at least 16250 B.C. and contains artifacts similar to
those found in Siberia from the same time period. The fluted Clovis point
has not been found at Meadowcroft or in Siberia. Other sites with early
dates are: Cactus Hill in Virginia 16200 B.C., Topper in South Carolina
16000 B.C., and Monte Verde in Chile 12500 B.C.. These sites represent
evidence of an early migration. Because there are so many sites dating to
the period from 11500 B.C. to 10900 B.C., it is hard to imagine Clovis
Indians appearing so quickly without a Pre-Clovis population in place.
The age of "tools" found in archeological sites is based on the level of the
dig and other material at the same level i.e. charcoal...but maybe the
charcoal was washed or blown into the wind-water-formed shelter from a
forest fire 16,000 years ago. There are hundreds of Clovis sites in North
America, but only a few sites supposedly pre-date the Clovis Period.
Alternate Pre-Historic Indian Routes - Anthropik
Network
Living in small hunter-gatherer bands, the Clovis Indians followed
primarily herds of mammoth and mastodon for about five hundred years,
and then according to some archeologists, abruptly disappeared. The
Clovis disappearance coincided with the mass extinction of the Ice Age
animals, such as the mastodon and wooly-haired mammoth. It has been
postulated by these archeologists over hunting by Clovis Indians
contributed to this mass extinction of Ice Age animals.
Some points to consider for over hunting causing this mass extinction:
1). The Pennsylvania Archeological site states: there are hundreds of welldated sites in both North and South America that date to between 11,500
and 10,500 years ago. Most of these sites contain spear points with a flute,
or channel along its length; in the eastern United States, these points are
most often called Clovis points.
2). The North American Clovis Indians lived as hunter-gatherers in small
bands of twenty to sixty extended family members on the fringe of the
Great Plains, not out on it (Haines). On average, a family group consisted
of eight members with two warriors. For the sake of argument, lets say
several hundred sites are increased to a thousand sites by future
discoveries, and ninety percent of these sites are in the southwestern
United States. Using the highest figure, this put the total number of PaleoIndians scattered across North America at approximately sixty thousand
with fifty-four thousand in the southwest. Of this fifty-four thousand,
twenty percent are hunters, which means there were about ten thousand
hunters...the point is, no matter how the figures are juggled, there were
very few Paleo-Indians, or anybody else, even on the fringes of the Great
Plains between 11500 B.C. and 10500 B.C.
3) The large grass-eating animals lived on the Great Plains...Indians lived
on the edge of the Great Plains. With ten thousand Paleo-Indian hunters
roaming east of the Rocky Mountains between Canada and East Texas, it
is a stretch of the imagination to think Paleo-Indians had much effect on
the "Overkill" of anything, especially Ice Age animals...or...any people
whose ancestors survived the walk from Siberia to central Texas are going
to abruptly starve to death when there was plenty of other animals to hunt.
Did the Clovis Indians disappear, or did they adapt a new lithic point and
become classified as Folsom Indians?