The Clovis Culture: What It Was And What Its Characteristics Were
In 1933, a team of archaeologists is excavating in the western United States. The archaeological work soon bears fruit, as a series of prehistoric tools more than 13,000 years old are found in several sites. One of the explored sites was in Clovis, New Mexico, and gave its name to an entire culture.
What exactly was Clovis culture? What were its characteristics? Is it, as has been maintained until now, the oldest indigenous American culture? Join us on this journey through this fascinating culture, which populated the American continent more than 13,000 years ago.
The 1933 archaeological discovery was not the only one. Year after year, Clovis-style tools were found throughout the southern United States and northern Mexico, especially in South Dakota, Pennsylvania, Colorado, Ohio, Virginia, Montana, Oklahoma and Wyoming. Scientists hypothesized that all these manifestations could be linked to each other, and called this culture “Clovis culture.”, in honor of one of its most important sites. But what was this culture based on? What were its characteristics?
Mainly, the finds were based on hunting tools, made with extraordinary precision. It was about properly sharpened flint stones, with a grooved shape (the “Clovis point”) that made them a perfect weapon The stones were very easy to insert into a spear, allowing the projectile to be launched from very far away. Furthermore, the triangular bands were very sharp, so it has been calculated that they could penetrate the thick skin of a mammoth, the main game, without any difficulty.
The sophistication of the Clovis culture tools and their relatively “recent” dating have led experts to think that the first settlers of America, who would have arrived from Asia through the Bering Strait, already brought these manufacturing techniques with them.
However, new theories have recently been proposed, which we will discuss below.
The American “Eve”
Until now, the oldest evidence of human presence in America dated back to about 13,500 years ago. It is the skull of a young woman (about 20-25 years old), 140 cm tall and weighing about 53 kilograms. She was found in Yucatán, in some caves that are currently completely submerged, but that at the time the woman lived were on dry land. This primal woman was called “Eve,” although she was also called She is known as Woman of Naharon
Let us remember that, during the ice ages, the sea level was very low, so parcels of land that are now underwater were, 13,000 years ago, on the surface. Thus, the aforementioned caves, explored by archaeologists in the early 2000s, would have served as a burial place and funerary celebrations.
We have, therefore, that the oldest evidence of human presence in America dates back to 13,500 years ago, which coincides with the entry of the first humans to the continent and with the birth of the Clovis culture. However, recent discoveries and studies have called this universally accepted theory into question. Among them, the discovery, in Florida, of remains dating back 14,500 years which would precede the Clovis culture by almost 15 centuries.
The Clovis culture, the first Americans?
Magazine Science Advances published a study in 2016 reporting the discovery of stone tools and mastodon bones in Page-Ladson, a very deep sinkhole in the Aucilla River, Florida. Carbon-14 dating yielded astonishing information: the remains dated to about 14,550 years ago, that is, almost 1,500 years before the appearance of the Clovis culture.
This discovery has forced the scientific community to reconsider whether, in fact, Clovis was the first American culture. Based on this, new and surprising theories have been appearing, such as the one supported by Jon Erlandson, from the University of Oregon. According to this expert, the first communities entered American soil long before the migratory wave that entered on foot through the Bering Strait. But How could these first men and women access America, if before their “official” arrival the pass was covered in ice? Erlandson’s theory is truly novel: the first humans arrived by boat from Asia and, from the sea, followed the route of the great rivers: Columbia, Missouri, Mississippi and, finally, the Gulf of Mexico.
In reality, the first evidence of navigation dates back only 10,000 years, so, in principle, Erlandson’s theory does not hold up. But according to the scientist, the remains of this supposed arrival by sea would have been eliminated by the rise in sea level after the thaw (the same thaw that allowed the other wave of migrations to cross the Bering Strait). At the moment, there are only theories.
Are they responsible for the extinction of American megafauna?
Scientific evidence attests that, at the time of the birth of the Clovis culture, There was an important megafauna in America: from giant moles to the impressive mammoths, considered the largest mammal that has ever existed. Specifically, the so-called Columbia mammoth could reach 4 meters high and weigh about 10 tons, not to mention that its tusks were a dangerous weapon 3 meters long.
The men and women of the Clovis culture were only able to obtain such prey through the making of increasingly precise tools, such as those that emerged in the different excavations. Their specialization in hunting these large mammals grew over time, to the point that many experts point out that the extinction of this megafauna is directly related to massive hunting.
Studies using spores (which proliferate in the fecal waste of herbivores and can be preserved for more than 10,000 years) show that, 15,000 years ago, megafauna in America was very abundant, but that approximately 13,500 years ago it had completely disappeared. As we can see, the dates coincide with the Clovis culture. It’s more, The disappearance of these large mammals is parallel to the disappearance of this culture
However, Jacquelyn Gill, from the University of Maine, who has thoroughly studied the presence of spores in American soil, assures that they began to decline about 14,800 years ago, that is, long before the Clovis culture appeared. This indicates that the previous settlers of America (perhaps those who arrived by boat, according to Erlandson?) also hunted large mammals with much simpler techniques. What is clear is that the mass extinction of megafauna already occurred at the time of the Clovis culture, as also demonstrated by the study of spores.
A mystery still unsolved
It is difficult to unravel the past when it is so far away. Who, exactly, were the men and women who gave life to the so-called Clovis culture? Were they really the first Americans? Why did their culture, which produced such sophisticated tools, only last 300 years?
The answers are still unclear. Like so many other cultures of Prehistory, that of Clovis remains a mystery with many questions to be clarified.
