From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Examples of Clovis points.

Clovis points are the oldest stone tools associated with the North American Clovis culture. They date to the Paleo-Indian period around 13,500 years ago. They are named after the town of Clovis, New Mexico, where the first examples were found in 1932. However, many have been found within the remains of ice age animals.

The points are thin, fluted projectile objects created from bifacially pressure flaking flint, chert or other materials. Clovis points have a concave groove running longitudinally along them which archaeologists think permitted them to be fastened (hafted) to wooden spears, or short shafts which were then mounted into sockets on heavier spear shafts. This provided for reloadable spears. The spear could be thrown by hand or with the aid of the atlatl, or spearthrower.

They have been found all over North America and as far south as Panama. Whether Clovis points were devised in the Americas and evolved from a pre-Clovis society or came there through influences from elsewhere is a contentious issue amongst archaeologists. However, at this time, Clovis points appeared in the New World, with no forebearer to its lithic knowledge in the Old World.

Around 9000 BCE, there was a new type of fluted projectile points called Folsom.

Besides its function as a tool, Clovis technology became a lithic symbol of a highly mobile culture who exploited faunal resources during the Pleistocene. As Clovis technology expanded, there could be a possible relationship with resources, as it being a contributor to the extinction of megafaunal resources. Clovis technology has also proven to have a significant role in determining when the earliest colonists ventured into North America.

The Clovis tradition "known as a sophisticated stone technology based on a point that was fastened to the end of hunting spear flourished between 12,000 and 11,000 B.P. in the central Plains, on their western margins, and over a large area of what is now the eastern United States." Often this stone tool is used for carving or sharping edges of other rocks or artificial rocks, stones, or fossils. The Clovis is also a very highy useful tool when hunting. Hunters believe that with its sharp edges and points it can be very effective for shaving skins or even ripping apart body parts of certain animals. Archeologists say that the clovis is very easy to travel with and is one of the most useful tools related to anthropology. Although it may look just like a regular anthropological tool, it is considered one of the best and most highly effective tools used at the time.

There are two different opinions about how the Clovis point first came to be. The first is that there were Pre-Clovis people in the New World whose roots were made in the Middle Paleolithic and Clovis traditions in which were developed from them. The other opinion is that the first inhabitants in the New World were the Clovis from the Upper Paleolithic who reverted back to the flake technology. Both of these opinions mean that the Clovis point was developed in the New World, but the pre-Clovis opinion requires that a very early entry into the New World was formed, the Clovis opinion does not show this. At this time, there have been no Clovis points found in the Old World or in Alaska. However, the Solutrean hypothesis suggests that Clovis Culture developed from the similar Solutrean of southwestern Europe, and that the technology may have been brought to America through migration along the Atlantic pack ice edge using survival skills similar to that of modern Inuit people.

• Kottak, Conrad (2005). Window on Humanity. Boston: McGraw Hill. 
• Informative page on Clovis Points, with photos