clovis point

File:Clovis Rummells Maske.jpg]]

Only a few recovered Clovis points are in their original condition. Most points were "reworked" to resharpen them or repair damage.Peck, Rodney M., "Re-Worked Clovis Projectile Points", Central States Archaeological Journal, vol. 57, no. 1, pp. 26–28, 2010 This can make it difficult to identify which lithic tradition they come from.Roosa, William B., "Some Great Lakes Fluted Point Types", Michigan Archaeologist 11(3,4), pp. 89-102, 1965

Clovis type description:

• Clovis is a comparatively large and heavy bifacially flaked fluted lanceolate point, lenticular to near oval in cross-section with parallel to moderately convex lateral edges, a majority having the latter.
• Maximum width is usually at or slightly below midpoint, frequently resulting in rather long sharp tips.
• Bases are normally only slightly concave, the depth usually ranging from {{convert|1|to|4|mm|abbr=on}} and arching completely across basal width.
• Basal corners range from nearly square to slightly rounded without forming eared projections.
• Length range is considerable, with a majority between {{convert|75|and|110|mm|abbr=on}}.
• Maximum width range is {{convert|25|to|50|mm|abbr=on}}, a majority near the former.
• Maximum thickness range, {{convert|5|to|10|mm|abbr=on}}.
• Normally fluted on both faces.
• Flutes are most often produced by multiple flake removals
• Length and quality of flutes is greatly variable, with length usually 30% to 50% of overall point length, and the majority near the former
• Base of flutes is often widened by subsequent removals of additional channel flakes or short wide flakes.
• There is minimal post-fluting retouch of basal areas.
• Overall flaking frequently irregular in both size and orientation, often including large facet remnants of early stage reduction processes
• There is very moderate evidence of pressure flaking
• Lower lateral and basal edges are smoothed by grinding, often resulting in slight tapering of base.
• Clovis points do not have recurved (fishtail) lateral edges, pronounced basal constrictions, or convex (Folsom-type) channel flake platform remnants.

Points generally weigh between roughly 25 grams and 35 grams.Bamforth, Douglas B., "Projectile Points, People, and Plains Paleoindian Perambulations", Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 28 (2), pp. 142–5. 2009Specimens are known to have been made of flint, chert, jasper, chalcedony and other stone of conchoidal fracture.WILKE, PHILIP J., et al., "Clovis Technology at the Anzick Site, Montana", Journal of California and Great Basin Anthropology, vol. 13, no. 2, pp. 242–72, 1991 Clovis points can vary even at a single site. The eight points found at Naco, while otherwise similar, ranged in length from 2 to 4 inches.Laub, Richard S., "Interlude 2 The Clovis People", Two Acres of Time: Unearthing the Ice Age at the Byron Dig, New York Chichester, West Sussex: Columbia University Press, pp. 94-100, 2022 A study suggested that Clovis points east of the Mississippi river had more diversity/richness than those in the west.Buchanan, B., A. Chao, C. H. Chiu, R. K. Colwell, M. J. O’Brien, A. Werner, and M. I. Eren, "Environment-Induced Changes in Selective Constraints on Social Learning during the Peopling of the Americas", Scientific Reports 7: 44431, 2017Buchanan, B., M. J. Hamilton, J. D. Kilby, and J. A. Gingerich, "Lithic Networks Reveal Early Regionalization in Late Pleistocene North America", Journal of Archaeological Science 65, pp. 114–21, 2016

File:Clovis spearpoints collected in 1807 - Cleveland Museum of Natural History - 2014-12-26 (20426140553).jpg]]

Clovis points have been found over most of North America and, less commonly, as far south as Venezuela.Dillehay, Tom D., and Jeremy A. Sabloff, "Probing Deeper into First American Studies", Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, vol. 106, no. 4, 2009, pp. 971–78, 2009Pailes, Matthew C. and Searcy, Michael T., "Paleoindian Period". Hinterlands to Cities: The Archaeology of Northwest Mexico and Its Vecinos", University Press of Colorado, pp. 21-37, 2022 One issue is that the sea level is now about 50 meters higher than in the Paleoindian period so any coastal sites would be underwater, which may be skewing the data.Lothrop, Jonathan C., Darrin L. Lowery, Arthur E. Spiess, and Christopher J. Ellis, "Early Human Settlement of Northeastern North America", PaleoAmerica 2(3), pp.192–251, 2016 The widespread South American Fishtail or Fell projectile point style has been suggested to have derived from Clovis.{{Cite journal |last=Fiedel |first=Stuart J. |date=2017-07-20 |title=The Anzick genome proves Clovis is first, after all |journal=Quaternary International |language=en |volume=444 |pages=4–9 |doi=10.1016/j.quaint.2017.06.022|bibcode=2017QuInt.444....4F }} Of the around 6000 points currently classified as Clovis found in the United States the majority were east of the Mississippi and especially in the Southeast.Toner, Mike. “Impossibly Old America?” Archaeology, vol. 59, no. 3, pp. 40–45, 2006 Some researchers suggest that many of the eastern points are misclassified and most real Clovis Points are found in the west.Howard, Calvin D., "The Clovis Point: Characteristics and Type Description", Plains Anthropologist, vol. 35, no. 129, pp. 255–62, 1990 Significant Clovis find sites include:Waters, Michael R., and Thomas W. Stafford, "Redefining the Age of Clovis: Implications for the Peopling of the Americas", Science, vol. 315, no. 5815, pp. 1122–26, 2007

File:Flint-knapping Demonstration (27349458154).jpg

• Anzick site in Montana
• Aubrey site in Texas
• Belson siteTalbot, Thomas, Henry T. Wright, and Brendan Nash, "The Belson site: A Paleoindian campsite on the outwash plains of the Central Great Lakes", PaleoAmerica 7.1, pp. 76-84, 2021[https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0302255] Bredan Nash et al, "Clovis organizational dynamics at a Late Glacial campsite in the central Great Lakes: Belson site excavations 2020–2021", PlosOne, May 29, 2024
• Big Eddy Site in Missouri
• Blackwater Draw type site in New Mexico
• Colby site in Wyoming
• Dent site in Colorado
• Domebo Canyon in Oklahoma
• East Wenatchee Clovis Site in Washington
• El Fin del Mundo in Sonora, Mexico
• Gault site in Texas
• Page–Ladson in Florida
• Lehner Mammoth-Kill Site in Arizona
• Murray Springs Clovis Site in Arizona
• Naco Mammoth Kill Site in Arizona
• Paleo Crossing site in Ohio
• Ready site (aka Lincoln Hills site) in Illinois
• Shawnee-Minisink Site in Pennsylvania
• Simon site in Idaho
• Sloth Hole in Florida

Fraudulent Clovis points have also emerged on the open market, some with false documentation."A Variety of Replica Fluted Clovis Points.", Central States Archaeological Journal, vol. 54, no. 2, pp. 102–03, 2007

File:DeGraffenried Clovis Cache.tif

Clovis points, along with other stone and bone/ivory tools, have been identified in over two dozen artifact caches.{{cite journal |author=J. David Kilby |title=A North American perspective on the Volgu Biface Cache from Upper Paleolithic France and its relationship to the "Solutrean Hypothesis" for Clovis origins |journal=Quaternary International |date=10 May 2019 |volume=515 |pages=197–207 |doi=10.1016/j.quaint.2018.06.019 |bibcode=2019QuInt.515..197K }} These caches range from the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains and Northwest United States. While the Anzick cache is associated with a child burial, the majority of caches appear to represent anticipatory material storage at strategic locations on the Pleistocene landscape.{{cite web |author1=David Kilby|author2=B.B. Huckell

|url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/290912184|title=Clovis Caches: Current perspectives and future directions|date=January 2014}} In May 2008, a major Clovis cache, now called the Mahaffey Cache, was found in Boulder, Colorado, with 83 Clovis stone tools though no actual Clovis Points. The tools were found to have traces of horse and cameloid protein. They were dated to 13,000 to 13,500 YBP, a date confirmed by sediment layers in which the tools were found and the types of protein residues found on the artifacts.{{cite web |url=https://www.colorado.edu/today/2009/02/25/13000-year-old-stone-tool-cache-colorado-shows-evidence-camel-horse-butchering |title=13,000-Year-Old Stone Tool Cache in Colorado Shows Evidence of Camel, Horse Butchering |date=February 25, 2009 |publisher=University of Colorado at Boulder |access-date=22 September 2010}} The Fenn cache is an important collection of 56 items of uncertain provenance but that was probably discovered in 1902 "near the area where Utah, Wyoming, and Idaho meet" and was acquired by Forrest Fenn in 1988.{{Cite journal |last=Banks |first=Alan |date=2000 |title=Review of The Fenn Cache, Clovis Weapons and Tools |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/43141943 |journal=Central States Archaeological Journal |volume=47 |issue=2 |pages=93 |jstor=43141943 |issn=0008-9559}}

There is current debate on whether "assemblages", production debris typically found in Clovis sites (blade cores, large bifacial overface flakes, etc.) but without actual projectile points, actually date to the Clovis period or to later periods.(Eren et al., "Is Clovis Technology Unique to Clovis?", PaleoAmerica 4, pp.202–228, 2018[https://bpb-us-w2.wpmucdn.com/people.smu.edu/dist/5/554/files/2021/05/Eren-et-al.-2021-PALEOAMERICA-Clovis-technology-is-not-unique-to-Clovis.pdf] Eren, Metin I., David J. Meltzer, and Brian N. Andrews, "Clovis technology is not unique to Clovis", PaleoAmerica 7.3 (2021): 226–241, 2021

{{Main|Clovis culture|Solutrean hypothesis}}

Image:Clovis Point.jpg

Whether Clovis toolmaking technology was developed in the Americas in response to megafauna hunting or originated through influences from elsewhere is an open question among archaeologists. Lithic antecedents of Clovis points have not been found in northeast Asia, from where the first human inhabitants of the Americas originated in the current consensus of archaeology. Some archaeologists have argued that similarities between points produced by the Solutrean culture in the Iberian Peninsula of Europe suggest that the technology was introduced by hunters traversing the Atlantic ice-shelf and suggests that some of the first American humans were European (the Solutrean hypothesis).Stanford, Dennis J. and Bradley, Bruce A., "The Solutrean Hypothesis", Across Atlantic Ice: The Origin of America's Clovis Culture, Berkeley: University of California Press, pp. 147-238, 2012{{cite journal | last1 = Bradley | first1 = Bruce | last2 = Stanford | first2 = Dennis | title = The North Atlantic ice-edge corridor: A possible Palaeolithic route to the New World | journal = World Archaeology | date = December 2004 | volume = 36 | issue = 4 | pages = 459–478 | issn = 0043-8243 | eissn = 1470-1375 | doi = 10.1080/0043824042000303656 | pmid = | url = }} However, this hypothesis is not well-accepted as other archaeologists have pointed out that Solutrean and Clovis lithic technologies are technologically distinct (e.g. a lack of distinctive flutes in Solutrean technology),{{cite journal | last1 = Straus | first1 = Lawrence Guy | last2 = Meltzer | first2 = David J. | last3 = Goebel | first3 = Ted | title = Ice Age Atlantis? Exploring the Solutrean-Clovis 'connection' | journal = World Archaeology | date = December 2005 | volume = 37 | issue = 4 | pages = 507–532 | issn = 0043-8243 | eissn = 1470-1375 | doi = 10.1080/00438240500395797 | pmid = | url = }} there is no genetic evidence for European ancestry in Indigenous North Americans,{{cite journal | last1 = Raff | first1 = Jennifer A. | last2 = Bolnick | first2 = Deborah A. | title = Does Mitochondrial Haplogroup X Indicate Ancient Trans-Atlantic Migration to the Americas? A Critical Re-Evaluation | journal = PaleoAmerica | date = October 2015 | volume = 1 | issue = 4 | pages = 297–304 | issn = 2055-5563 | eissn = 2055-5571 | doi = 10.1179/2055556315Z.00000000040 | pmid = | url = | doi-access = free }} and the proposed Solutrean migration route was likely unsuitable.{{cite journal | last1 = Westley | first1 = Kieran | last2 = Dix | first2 = Justin | title = The Solutrean Atlantic Hypothesis: A View from the Ocean | journal = Journal of the North Atlantic | date = July 2008 | volume = 1 | pages = 85–98 | issn = 1935-1933 | eissn = 1935-1933 | doi = 10.3721/J080527 | pmid = | url = }}

• Barnes projectile point
• Beaver Lake point
• Cascade point
• Cumberland point
• Eden point
• Golondrina point
• Goshen point
• Plainview point
• Plano point
• Simpson point
• Suwannee point
• East Wenatchee Clovis Site

{{Reflist}}

• Buchanan, Briggs, O’Brien, Michael J. and Collard, Mark, "Continent-wide or region-specific? A geometric morphometrics-based assessment of variation in Clovis point shape", Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 145-162, 2014
• Collins, Michael B., "Clovis Blade Technology", University of Texas Press, Austin, 1999
• {{cite journal |vauthors=Crassard R, Charpentier V, McCorriston J, Vosges J, Bouzid S, Petraglia MD |title=Fluted-point technology in Neolithic Arabia: An independent invention far from the Americas |journal=PLOS ONE |volume=15 |issue=8 |at=e0236314 |date=August 5, 2020 |doi=10.1371/journal.pone.0236314 |doi-access=free|pmid=32756558 |pmc=7406013 |bibcode=2020PLoSO..1536314C |hdl=10072/412734 |hdl-access=free }}
• Di Peso, Charles C., "Clovis Fluted Points from Southeastern Arizona", American Antiquity 19, pp. 82–85, 1953
• [https://par.nsf.gov/servlets/purl/10324783] Eren, Metin I., et al., "North American Clovis point form and performance II: An experimental assessment of point, haft, and shaft durability", Lithic Technology 47.1, pp. 38–51, 2022
• Eren, Metin I., et al., "North American Clovis Point Form and Performance IV: An Experimental Assessment of Knife Edge Effectiveness and Wear", Lithic Technology, pp. 1–12, 2013
• Frison, George C., "Experimental Use of Clovis Weaponry and Tools on African Elephants", American Antiquity, vol. 54, no. 4, pp. 766–84. 1989
• Greene, F. E., "The Clovis Blades: An Important Addition to the Llano Complex", American Antiquity 29, pp. 145–165, 1963
• Haynes, C. Vance, "Distribution of Clovis Points in Arizona and the Clovis Exploration of the State, 11,000 B.C.", Kiva, vol. 76, no. 3, pp. 343–67, 2011
• Hesse, India S., "A Reworked Clovis Point near Chevelon Ruin, Arizona", Kiva, vol. 61, no. 1, pp. 83–88, 1995
• Holen, Steven R., "Clovis Projectile Points and Preforms in Nebraska: Distribution and Lithic Sources", Current Research in the Pleistocene 20, pp. 31–33, 2003
• Lawrence J. Jackson, "A Clovis Point from South Coastal Chile", Current Research in the Pleistocene 12, pp. 21–23, 1995
• [https://par.nsf.gov/servlets/purl/10324782] Mika, Anna, et al., "North American Clovis point form and performance III: An experimental assessment of knife cutting efficiency", Lithic Technology 47.3, pp. 203–220, 2020
• Morrow, Juliet E., "Clovis projectile point manufacture: a perspective from the Ready/Lincoln Hills site, 11JY46, Jersey County, Illinois.", Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology, vol. 20, no. 2, pp. 167–91, 1995
• Peck, Rodney M., "Clovis Points of Early Man in North Carolina", The Piedmont Journal of Archaeology 6, pp. 1–22, 1988
• Peck, Rodney M., "Unique Features of an Unusual Large North Carolina Clovis Point", Central States Archaeological Journal, vol. 51, no. 4, 2004
• Prasciunas, Mary M., "Mapping Clovis: Projectile Points, Behavior, and Bias", American Antiquity, vol. 76, no. 1, pp. 107–26, 2011

• [https://pidba.utk.edu/ The Paleoindian Database of the Americas]
• [http://www.texasbeyondhistory.net/gault/clovis.html Clovis Points at the site in Gault, Texas]
• [http://www.dhr.virginia.gov/arch_DHR/Points/clovis.xml Virginia Department of Historic Resources]
• [https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/H_1962-1206-137 Clovis Point at the British Museum]
• [https://archeology.uark.edu/artifacts/quartzclovis/ Quartz Crystal Clovis Point at the University of Arkansas]
• [https://apps.jefpat.maryland.gov/diagnostic/ProjectilePoints/FindingAidsandImagePages/FindingAids/PaleoIndian/clovis.html Clovis points found in Maryland]

{{Prehistoric technology| state=expanded}}

{{Pre-Columbian North America}}

Category:Projectile points

Category:Archaeological artefact types

Category:Clovis culture

Category:Indigenous weapons of the Americas