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The Clovis culture is a prehistoric Native American culture that first appears in the archaeological record of North America around 13,500 years ago, at the end of the last ice age. They are named for artifacts found near Clovis, New Mexico, where the first evidence of this tool complex was excavated in 1932. Clovis sites have since been identified throughout all of the contiguous United States, as well as Mexico and Central America. The Clovis people are generally regarded as the ancestors of the indigenous cultures of North and South America.For much of the 20th century, the Clovis people were universally regarded among archaeologists as the first people of the New World. Recent scholarship has begun to challenge this theory, supported by the possible discovery in 2004 of worked stone tools at the TopperTopper is an archaeological site located along the Savannah River in Allendale County, South Carolina in the United States. It is noted as the location of controversial artifacts believed by some archaeologists to indicate human habitation of the New Worl site in South CarolinaSouth Carolina ( In Detail) (Full size) State nickname: Palmetto State Other U. States Capital Columbia Largest City Columbia Governor Mark Sanford Area Total Land Water % water Ranked 40th 82,965 kmē 78,051 kmē 4,915 kmē 6% Population Total ( 2000) Densi that have been dated by radiocarbon techniques to 50,000 years ago.
1 Description
A hallmark of Clovis cultureThe word culture comes from the Latin root colere (to inhabit, to cultivate, or to honor). In general it refers to human activity; different definitions of culture reflect different theories for understanding, or criteria for valuing, human activity. is the use of a distinctively-shaped fluted rock spearA spear is an ancient weapon, used for hunting and war. It consists of a shaft, usually of wood, with a sharpened head. The head may be simply the sharpened end of the shaft itself, as is the case with bamboo spears, or it may be of another material faste point, known as the Clovis pointClovis points are the oldest flint 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.. The Clovis point is distinctively bifacial and fluted on both sides, a feature that possibly allowed the point to be mounted onto a spear in a way so that the point would snap off on impact. Archaeologists do not agree on whether the widespread presence of these artifacts indicates the proliferation of a single people, or the adoption of a superior technology by non-Clovis people. It is generally accepted that Clovis people hunted mammothA mammoth is any of a number of an extinct genus of elephant, often with long curved tusks and, in northern species, a covering of long hair. They inhabited the northern regions of the world, in Europe, northern Asia, and North America. Many types of mamm: sites abound where Clovis points are found mixed in with mammoth remains. Whether they drove the mammoth to extinction via overhunting them--the so-called PleistoceneThe Pleistocene epoch is part of the geologic timescale, usually dated as 1. 6 million to 10,000 years before present, with the end date expressed in radiocarbon years. It covers most of the latest period of repeated glaciation, up to and including the Yo overkill hypothesis--is still an open, and controversial, question.
Since the mid 20th century, the standard theory among archaelogists has been that the the Clovis people were the first inhabitants of the Americas. The primary support of the theory was that no solid evidence of pre-Clovis human inhabitation has been found. According to the standard accepted theory, the Clovis people crossed the Beringia land bridge over the Bering Strait from Siberia to Alaska during the period of lowered sea levels during the ice age, then made their way southward through an ice-free corridor east of the Rocky Mountains in present-day western Canada as the glaciers retreated.
