When you were a kid, did you learn that the first humans in the Americas crossed over the Bering land bridge about 12,000 years ago? Scholars have overturned this chronology completely, but it held away for many years in part because of this type of spear- or knife- head technology featured here, which is the famed “Clovis point.”.
Named after the small town of Clovis, New Mexico, Clovis points have this fluted concave dugout on both sides — presumably for attaching to a spear or other shaft. The thin edges are distinguished by the way a small hammer flattened both sides to thinness by chipping on them in alternating patterns. So distinct are these artifacts that scholars indeed can date them to about 13,000 years ago, and believe they were only in use for a few hundred years. During this time, Clovis technology spread so quickly (generally radiating out and northward from the southwestern United States) that it even earned the name “Blitzkrieg Model”.
Corresponding with the Clovis technology was the rapid extinction of the American megafauna, which included species like giant sloths as well as wooly mammoths. Debated is whether climate change, human killing, or both caused the elimination of these animals.
But the “Clovis First” archaeologists have lost the debate by now. In other words, we don’t see a story where Paleo Indians crossed a land bridge in one fell swoop, quickly ranging across North America, their successful migration made possible with their Clovis point technology.
Archaeological and genetic evidence show a different picture of a much earlier migration, likely taken by boat, that moved south along the west coast of North America.
Sources: Pp 65-81 of _Origins: a Genetic History of the Americas_ Jennifer Raff
