Clovis point

Only a few recovered Clovis points are in their original condition. Most points were "reworked" to resharpen them or repair damage. This can make it difficult to identify which lithic tradition they come from. Clovis type description: Specimens are known to have been made of flint, chert, jasper, chalcedony and other stone of conchoidal fracture. Quartz crystal were also used and those points tend to be smaller. Clovis points can vary even at a single site. The eight points found at Naco, while otherwise similar, ranged in length from 2 to 4 inches. A study suggested that Clovis points east of the Mississippi river had more diversity/richness than those in the west. Points found in North Carolina also suggest there were regional variations. == Distribution ==

Clovis points have been found over most of North America and, less commonly, as far south as Venezuela. One issue is that the sea level is now about 50 meters higher than in the Paleoindian period so any coastal sites would be underwater, which may be skewing the data. The widespread South American Fishtail or Fell projectile point style has been suggested to have derived from Clovis. Of the around 6000 points currently classified as Clovis found in the United States the majority were east of the Mississippi and especially in the Southeast. Some researchers suggest that many of the eastern points are misclassified and most real Clovis Points are found in the west. Significant Clovis find sites include: • Anzick site in Montana • Aubrey site in Texas • Belson site • Big Bone Lick State Park in Kentucky • Big Eddy Site in Missouri • Blackwater Draw type site in New Mexico • Cactus Hill in Virgina • Colby site in Wyoming • Dent site in Colorado • Domebo Canyon in Oklahoma • East Wenatchee Clovis Site in Washington • El Fin del Mundo in Sonora, Mexico • Gault site in Texas • Page–Ladson in Florida • Lehner Mammoth-Kill Site in Arizona • Mockingbird Gap site • Murray Springs Clovis Site in Arizona • Naco Mammoth Kill Site in Arizona • Paleo Crossing site in Ohio • Ready site (aka Lincoln Hills site) in Illinois • Shawnee-Minisink Site in Pennsylvania • Simon site in Idaho • Sloth Hole in Florida Fraudulent Clovis points have also emerged on the open market, some with false documentation. Caches Clovis points, along with other stone and bone/ivory tools, have been identified in over two dozen artifact caches. These caches range from the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains and Northwest United States. While the Anzick cache is associated with a child burial, the majority of caches appear to represent anticipatory material storage at strategic locations on the Pleistocene landscape. ==Origins==

Whether Clovis toolmaking technology was developed in the Americas in response to megafauna hunting or originated through influences from elsewhere is an open question among archaeologists. Lithic antecedents of Clovis points have not been found in northeast Asia, from where the first human inhabitants of the Americas originated in the current consensus of archaeology. Some archaeologists have argued that similarities between points produced by the Solutrean culture in the Iberian Peninsula of Europe suggest that the technology was introduced by hunters traversing the Atlantic ice-shelf and suggests that some of the first American humans were European (the Solutrean hypothesis). However, this hypothesis is not well-accepted as other archaeologists have pointed out that Solutrean and Clovis lithic technologies are technologically distinct (e.g. a lack of distinctive flutes in Solutrean technology), there is no genetic evidence for European ancestry in Indigenous North Americans, and the proposed Solutrean migration route was likely unsuitable. ==See also==