Clovis people: Narrow window of tool-making

[Judi Lynn]

Tools made by some of North America's earliest inhabitants were made only during a 300-year period
Date:
October 23, 2020
Source:
Texas A&M University

There is much debate surrounding the age of the Clovis -- a prehistoric culture named for stone tools found near Clovis, New Mexico in the early 1930s -- who once occupied North America during the end of the last Ice Age. New testing of bones and artifacts show that Clovis tools were made only during a brief, 300-year period from 13,050 to 12,750 years ago.

Michael Waters, distinguished professor of anthropology and director of the Center for the Study of the First Americans, along with Texas A&M anthropologist David Carlson and Thomas Stafford of Stafford Research in Colorado, have had their new work published in the current issue of Science Advances.

The team used the radiocarbon method to date bone, charcoal and carbonized plant remains from 10 known Clovis sites in South Dakota, Colorado, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Virginia, Montana and two sites in Oklahoma and Wyoming. An analysis of the dates showed that people made and used the iconic Clovis spear-point and other distinctive tools for only 300 years.

"We still do not know how or why Clovis technology emerged and why it disappeared so quickly," Waters said.

"It is intriguing to note that Clovis people first appears 300 years before the demise of the last of the megafauna that once roamed North America during a time of great climatic and environmental change," he said. "The disappearance of Clovis from the archaeological record at 12,750 years ago is coincident with the extinction of mammoth and mastodon, the last of the megafauna. Perhaps Clovis weaponry was developed to hunt the last of these large beasts."

More:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/10/201023123104.htm

[wnylib]

1. Climate change might have been

a factor in the Clovis Point development and demise. Just speculating here, but the extinction of mastodons and mammoths coincided with the the start of the breakup of the Laurentide Ice Sheet in North Ametica. It didn't happen all at once, but occurred over a long period of warming, melting, then cooling before the warming cycle started again.

Perhaps people, mastodons, and mammoths moved northward during warming periods - humans to expand their hunting into newer territory and taking their Clovis points with them across the land, following herds of other animals as well. This would account for the widespread locations of the Clovis spearheads.

But as temperatures changed, ecosystems changed, too, causing more of the large mammals to go extinct when their traditional food sources became extinct. They had evolved for cooler, glacial climate conditions and plants. Repeated warming and cooling took a toll on the animals.

Clovis points are detailed and sophisticated - worth the time and care to make them for the reward of a big mammal kill to provide meat, hides, and bone tools for a group of people.

But Folsom points, which followed after Clovis, are easier and quicker to make, plus being sufficient for different types of game than the larger mastodons and mammoths.

So, as the mammoths and mastodons were dying out from changed ecosystems, Folsom points replaced Clovis points for hunting.

We can see the changes occurring today in ecosystems with global warming and climate change, causing some species to become more endangered. Perhaps something like this was happening in the time period of the transition from Clovis technology to Folsom.

I find it hard to believe that there were enough human hunters around who were so highly skilled at taking down animals 2 and 3 times their size that they could have caused the simultaneous extinction of several species of mammals. More likely climate change caused the extinctions, and then humans adapted by changing their weapons and tool technology.