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The Clovis culture is an archaeological culture from the Paleoindian period of North America, spanning around 13,050 to 12,750 years Before Present (BP).

1 near Clovis, New Mexico, where stone tools were found alongside the remains of Columbian mammoths in 1929. Clovis sites have been found across North America. The most distinctive part of the Clovis culture toolkit are Clovis points, which are projectile points with a fluted, lanceolate shape. Clovis points are typically large, sometimes exceeding 10 centimetres (3.9 in) in length. 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. 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. Only one human burial has been directly associated with tools from the Clovis culture: Anzick-1, a young boy found buried in Montana, who has a close genetic relation to some modern Amerindian populations, primarily in Central and South America. The Clovis culture represents the earliest widely recognised archaeological culture in North America; however, in western North America, it appears to have been contemporaneous with the Western Stemmed Tradition. While historically, many scholars held to a "Clovis First" model, where Clovis represented the earliest inhabitants in the Americas, today this is generally rejected, with several generally accepted sites across the Americas being dated to at least a thousand years earlier than the oldest Clovis sites, including Monte Verde II, Cooper's Ferry, Paisley Caves, Page-Ladson, and Buttermilk Creek (Gault and Friedkin sites). 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. Beginning around 12,750–12,600 years BP, the Clovis culture was succeeded by more regional cultures, including the Folsom tradition in central North America, the Cumberland point in mid/southern North America, the Suwannee and Simpson points in the southeast, and Gainey points in the Northeast–Great Lakes region. The end of the Clovis culture is generally thought to be the result of normal cultural change over time. In South America, the widespread similar Fishtail or Fell point style was contemporaneous to the usage of Clovis points in North America; they possibly developed from Clovis points.

It has long been recognised that the definition of the Clovis culture is to a degree ambiguous, the term being "used in a number of ways, referring to an era, to a culture, and most specifically, to a distinctive projectile point type", with disagreement between scholars about distinguishing between Clovis and various other Paleoindian archaeological cultures.

A hallmark of the toolkit associated with the Clovis culture is the distinctively shaped lithic point known as the Clovis point.

Like other Native Americans, Anzick-1 is closely related to Siberian peoples (having like other Native Americans as well as modern northeast Siberians a mixture of East Asian-related and Ancient North Eurasian ancestry, the latter associated with the Siberian Mal'ta–Buret' culture), confirming the Asian origin of the Clovis culture.

While some authors have suggested that the Clovis culture resulted from diffusion of traditions through an already pre-existing Paleoindian population, others have asserted that the culture likely originated from the expansion of a single population. In Western North America, the Clovis culture was contemporaneous with and perhaps preceded by the Western Stemmed Tradition, which produced unfluted projectile points, with the Western Stemmed Tradition continuing in the region for several thousand years after the end of Clovis. There is no evidence that the disappearance of the Clovis culture was the result of the onset of the Younger Dryas, or that there was a population decline of Paleoindians following the end of the Clovis culture.

Quick Facts

• The most distinctive part of the Clovis culture toolkit are Clovis points, which are projectile points with a fluted, lanceolate shape.
• The Clovis culture represents the earliest widely recognised archaeological culture in North America; however, in western North America, it appears to have been contemporaneous with the Western Stemmed Tradition.
• Clovis sites have been found across North America.
• 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.
• 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.

Source material: Wikipedia - "Clovis culture". Adapted and summarized for DiscoverScroll. Original contributors are credited through the linked Wikipedia article. Read original on Wikipedia. CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes were made from the original.