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75-463: The Clovis culture is an archaeological culture from the Paleoindian period of North America, spanning around 13,050 to 12,750 years Before Present (BP). The type site is Blackwater Draw locality No. 1 near Clovis, New Mexico , where stone tools were found alongside the remains of Columbian mammoths in 1929. Clovis sites have been found across North America. The most distinctive part of

150-617: A Basketmaker burial. Reference is made to a slightly earlier article on Burnet Cave in The University Museum Bulletin from November 1931. The Dent site in Colorado was the first known association of Clovis points with mammoth bones, as noted by Hannah Marie Wormington in her book Ancient Man in North America (4th ed. 1957). Gary Haynes, in his book The Early Settlement of North America , suggested

225-662: A "Clovis first" model, where Clovis represented the earliest inhabitants in the Americas, today this is largely rejected, with several generally accepted sites across the Americas like Monte Verde II being dated to at least a thousand years earlier than the oldest Clovis sites. The end of the Clovis culture may have been driven by the decline of the megafauna that the Clovis hunted as well as decreasing mobility, resulting in local differentiation of lithic and cultural traditions across North America. Beginning around 12,750–12,600 years BP,

300-409: A "culture". We assume that such a complex is the material expression of what today we would call "a people". The concept of an archaeological culture was crucial to linking the typological analysis of archaeological evidence to mechanisms that attempted to explain why they change through time. The key explanations favoured by culture-historians were the diffusion of forms from one group to another or

375-441: A "shock absorber" to redistribute stress during impact, though others have suggested that it may have been purely stylistic or used to strengthen the hafting to the spear handle. The points were generally produced from nodules or siliceous cryptocrystalline rocks. Clovis points were thinned using end-thinning ("the removal of blade-like flakes parallel to the long-axis"). They were initially prepared using percussion flaking, with

450-518: A bison herd of at least 22 individuals. At the time of deposition, the site was a steep-sided arroyo (dry watercourse) that formed a dead end, suggesting that hunters trapped the bison herd within the arroyo before killing them. Beginning in the 1950s, Paul S. Martin proposed the "overkill hypothesis", suggesting that the Late Pleistocene megafauna extinctions in North America were driven by human hunting, including by Clovis peoples, with

525-465: A culture, rather a combination of traits are required. This view culture gives life to the artifacts themselves. "Once 'cultures' are regarded as things, it is possible to attribute behavior to them, and to talk about them as if they were living organisms." Archaeological cultures were equated separate 'peoples' (ethnic groups or races ) leading in some cases to distinct nationalist archaeologies. Most archaeological cultures are named after either

600-470: A distinction between material cultures that actually belonged to a single cultural group. It has been highlighted, for example, that village-dwelling and nomadic Bedouin Arabs have radically different material cultures even if in other respects, they are very similar. In the past, such synchronous findings were often interpreted as representing intrusion by other groups. The concept of archaeological cultures

675-619: A growing interest in ethnicity in 19th-century Europe. The first use of "culture" in an archaeological context was in Christian Thomsen 's 1836 work Ledetraad til Nordisk Oldkyndighed ( Norwegian : Guide to Northern Antiquity ). In the later half of the 19th century archaeologists in Scandinavia and central Europe increasingly made use of the German concept of culture to describe the different groups they distinguished in

750-456: A new group migrating in with this new style. This idea of culture is known as normative culture . It relies on the assumption found in the view of archaeological culture that artifacts found are "an expression of cultural norms," and that these norms define culture. This view is also required to be polythetic , multiple artifacts must be found for a site to be classified under a specific archaeological culture. One trait alone does not result in

825-596: A rag-tag assemblage of ideas." Archaeological culture is presently useful for sorting and assembling artifacts, especially in European archaeology that often falls towards culture-historical archaeology. Blackwater Draw Blackwater Draw is an intermittent stream channel about 140 km (87 mi) long, with headwaters in Roosevelt County, New Mexico , about 18 km (11 mi) southwest of Clovis, New Mexico , and flows southeastward across

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900-511: A specific designation for prehistoric cultures. Critics argue that cultural taxonomies lack a strong consensus on the epistemological aims of cultural taxonomy, The use of the term " culture " entered archaeology through 19th-century German ethnography , where the Kultur of tribal groups and rural peasants was distinguished from the Zivilisation of urbanised peoples. In contrast to

975-403: Is a classifying device to order archaeological data, focused on artifacts as an expression of culture rather than people. The classic definition of this idea comes from Gordon Childe : We find certain types of remains – pots, implements, ornaments, burial rites and house forms – constantly recurring together. Such a complex of associated traits we shall call a "cultural group" or just

1050-590: Is currently one of the oldest and most widespread chipped stone technologies recognized in the New World; radiocarbon dates on sediment from the Clovis layers at Blackwater Draw average around 11,290 years before the present. Two of the projectile points from Blackwater Draw were used as the type specimens to define Clovis chipped stone technology in the 1930s. The archaeological site is known for its well-defined and dated stratigraphic horizons that exhibit numerous cultural sequences. The sequences begin with some of

1125-584: Is disputed, with some authors arguing for a generalist hunter-gatherer lifestyle that also involved the occasional targeting of megafauna. The effectiveness of Clovis tools for hunting proboscideans has been contested by some authors, though others have asserted that Clovis points were likely capable of killing proboscideans, noting that replica Clovis points have been able to penetrate elephant hide in experimental tests, and that groups of hunter-gatherers in Africa have been observed killing elephants using spears . In

1200-484: Is generally agreed that these groups were reliant on hunting big game ( megafauna ), having a particularly strong association with mammoths, and to a lesser extent with mastodon , bison , camel , and horse, but they also consumed smaller animals and plants. The Clovis hunters may have contributed to the Late Pleistocene megafauna extinctions in North America, though this idea has been subject to controversy. Only one human burial has been directly associated with tools from

1275-435: Is generally thought be the result of normal cultural change over time. In South America, the widespread similar Fishtail or Fell point style was contemporaneous to the usage of Clovis points in North America and possibly developed from Clovis points. On August 29, 1927, the first evidence of Pleistocene humans seen by multiple archaeologists in the Americas was discovered near Folsom, New Mexico . At this site, they found

1350-423: Is itself a divisive subject within the archaeological field. When first developed, archaeologic culture was viewed as a reflection of actual human culture. ...in the traditional view we translate present into past by collecting artifacts into groups, and naming those groups as archaeological cultures. We then make the equation between an archaeological and a human culture by making the assumption that artifacts are

1425-467: Is the type-site of the Clovis culture . The first large-scale excavation occurred in 1932, though local residents had been collecting bone and lithic materials for decades. In the 1960s Frank J. Brolio excavated a camp site just to the northwest of the main site, known colloquially as "Franks Folsom Site". Finds included an especially large chert bi-face. In this period (1952 to 1970) Blackwater Draw

1500-683: The Blackwater Draw in eastern New Mexico. Despite several earlier Paleoindian discoveries, the best documented evidence of the Clovis complex was collected and excavated between 1932 and 1937 near Clovis, New Mexico , by a crew under the direction of Edgar Billings Howard until 1935 and later by John L. Cotter from the Academy of Natural Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania. Howard's crew left their excavation in Burnet Cave ,

1575-433: The Clovis point . Clovis points are bifacial (having flakes removed from both faces) and typically fluted (having an elongate flake removed from the base of the point) on both sides, with the fluting typically running up a third or a half of the length of the point, distinct from many later Paleoindian traditions where the flute runs up the entire point length. Clovis points are typically parallel-sided to slightly convex, with

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1650-642: The Southern Plains , Clovis people created campsites of considerable size, which are often on the periphery of the region near sources of workable stone, from which they are suggested to have seasonally migrated into the plains to hunt megafauna. In the southeast, Clovis peoples created large camps that may have served as "staging areas", which may have been seasonally occupied, where a number of bands may have gathered for social occasions. At Jake Bluff in northern Oklahoma, Clovis points are associated with numerous butchered Bison antiquus bones, which represented

1725-460: The gomphothere Cuvieronius ) bison, equines of the genus Equus , and the extinct camel Camelops . A handful of sites possibly suggest the hunting of caribou/reindeer , peccaries ( Platygonus , Mylohyus ), ground sloths ( Paramylodon ), glyptodonts ( Glyptotherium ), tapirs , and the llama Hemiauchenia . Proboscideans (especially mammoths) are the most common recorded species found in Clovis sites, followed by bison. However,

1800-424: The migration of the peoples themselves. A simplistic example of the process might be that if one pottery-type had handles very similar to those of a neighbouring type but decoration similar to a different neighbour, the idea for the two features might have diffused from the neighbours. Conversely, if one pottery-type suddenly replaces a great diversity of pottery types in an entire region, that might be interpreted as

1875-523: The Americas , particularly those from Central and South America, and less related to those from contemporary North America, including northern Mexico, though there is considerable variability in the genetic closeness of Central and South American indigenous peoples to Anzick-1, with older ancient South American remains generally being closer, suggesting that the Native American population had already diverged into multiple genetically distinct groups by

1950-761: The Blackwater Locality No. 1 site. The artifacts and displays illustrated life at the site during the Clovis period (over 13,000 years ago) through the recent historic period. In 2017, the museum moved onto the Eastern New Mexico University (ENMU) campus, and expanded its focus to incorporate local history, as well as archaeology on a broad scale. Exhibits now include descriptions of archaeological work, different archaeological sites, cultural complexes, and scientific methods, among other topics. Visitors can learn more information about Blackwater Draw, archaeology, and see materials from

2025-504: The Clovis culture generally not found in subsequent cultures is "caching", where a collection of artifacts (typically stone tools, such as Clovis points or bifaces) were deliberately left at a location, presumably with the intention to return to collect them later, though some authors have interpreted cache deposits as ritual behavior. Over twenty such "caches" have been identified across North America. A few Clovis culture artifacts are suspected to reflect creative expression, such as rock art,

2100-462: The Clovis culture is ancestral to other fluted point-producing cultures in Central and South America, like the widespread Fishtail or Fell point style. Archaeological culture Different cultural groups have material culture items that differ both functionally and aesthetically due to varying cultural and social practices. This notion is observably true on the broadest scales. For example,

2175-400: The Clovis culture is not exclusively associated with large animals, with several sites showing the exploitation of small game like tortoises and jackrabbits . It is generally agreed that the people who produced the Clovis culture were reliant on big game for a significant portion of their diet (while also consuming smaller animals and plants), though to what degree they were reliant on megafauna

2250-424: The Clovis culture is to a degree ambiguous, the term being "used in a number of ways, referring to an era, to a culture, and most specifically, to a distinctive projectile point type", with disagreement between scholars about distinguishing between Clovis and various other Paleoindian archaeological cultures. A hallmark of the toolkit associated with the Clovis culture is the distinctively shaped lithic point known as

2325-841: The Clovis culture toolkit are Clovis points , which are projectile points with a fluted, lanceolate shape. Clovis points are typically large, sometimes exceeding 10 centimetres (3.9 in) in length. These points were multifunctional, also serving as cutting tools. Other stone tools used by the Clovis culture include knives, scrapers , and bifacial tools, with bone tools including beveled rods and shaft wrenches, with possible ivory points also being identified. Hides, wood, and natural fibers may also have been utilized, though no direct evidence of this has been preserved. Clovis artifacts are often found grouped together in caches where they had been stored for later retrieval, and over 20 Clovis caches have been identified. The Clovis peoples are thought to have been highly mobile groups of hunter-gatherers . It

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2400-623: The Clovis culture was succeeded by more regional cultures, including the Folsom tradition in central North America, the Cumberland point in mid/southern North America, the Suwannee and Simpson points in the southeast, and Gainey points in the Northeast – Great Lakes region. The Clovis and Folsom traditions may have overlapped, perhaps for around 80–400 years. The end of the Clovis culture

2475-634: The Clovis culture: Anzick-1 , a young boy found buried in Montana, who has a close genetic relation to some modern Native American populations, primarily in Central and South America . The Clovis culture represents the earliest widely recognised archaeological culture in North America (though in western North America, it appears to have been contemporaneous with the Western Stemmed Tradition ). While historically, many scholars held to

2550-779: The Llano Estacado toward the city of Lubbock, Texas , where it joins Yellow House Draw to form Yellow House Canyon at the head of the North Fork Double Mountain Fork Brazos River . It stretches across eastern Roosevelt County, New Mexico , and Bailey , Lamb , Hale , and Lubbock Counties of West Texas and drains an area of 1,560 sq mi (4,040 km ). Blackwater Draw contains an important archaeological site , called Blackwater Draw National Historic Landmark , first recognized in 1929 by Ridgley Whiteman of Clovis, New Mexico . Blackwater Locality No. 1 (29RV2; LA3324)

2625-522: The Pacific coast) but more common in the very earliest Indigenous Americans. Some authors have suggested that the Clovis culture lasted for a relatively short period of a few centuries, with a 2020 study suggesting a temporal range, based on ten securely radiocarbon-dated Clovis sites, of 13,050 to 12,750 calibrated years BP, ending subsequent to the onset of the Younger Dryas , consistent with

2700-446: The archaeological culture found. Accusations came that archaeological culture was "idealist" as it assumes that norms and ideas are seen as being "important in the definition of cultural identity." It stresses the particularity of cultures: "Why and how they are different from the adjacent group." Processualists , and other subsequently critics of cultural-historical archaeology argued that archaeological culture treated culture as "just

2775-462: The archaeological record of particular sites and regions, often alongside and as a synonym of "civilisation". It was not until the 20th century and the works of German prehistorian and fervent nationalist Gustaf Kossinna that the idea of archaeological cultures became central to the discipline. Kossinna saw the archaeological record as a mosaic of clearly defined cultures (or Kultur-Gruppen , culture groups) that were strongly associated with race . He

2850-678: The archaeological site. The Clovis points were lanceolate and often, though not always, longer than Folsom points . The Clovis-age artifacts are in association with the remains of extinct Late Pleistocene megafauna, including mammoth , camel , horse , bison , saber-toothed cat , sloths , and dire wolf that were hunted by the early peoples who visited the site. Generations of some of the earliest New World inhabitants hunted and camped at Blackwater Draw, creating stratified levels of archaeological remains from many different time periods, including Clovis, Folsom, Midland, Agate Basin, and various Archaic period occupants. Clovis chipped stone technology

2925-602: The base of the point being concave. Although no direct evidence of what was attached to Clovis points has been found, Clovis points are commonly thought to have served as tips for spears /darts likely used as handheld thrusting or throwing weapons, possibly in combination with a spear thrower , for hunting and possibly self-defense. Wear on Clovis points indicates that they were multifunctional objects that also served as cutting and slicing tools, with some authors suggesting that some Clovis-point types were primarily used as knives. Clovis points were at least sometimes resharpened, though

3000-560: The blades typically carried in the mobile toolkit. Bifaces served a variety of roles for Clovis hunter-gatherers, such as cutting tools, preforms for formal tools such as points, and as portable sources of large flakes useful as preforms or tools. Other tools associated with the Clovis culture are adzes (likely used for woodworking), bone "shaft wrenches" (suggested to have been used to straighten wooden shafts), as well as rods, some of which have beveled (diagonally shaped) ends. These rods are made of bone, antlers, and ivory. The function of

3075-484: The broader use of the word that was introduced to English-language anthropology by Edward Burnett Tylor , Kultur was used by German ethnologists to describe the distinctive ways of life of a particular people or Volk , in this sense equivalent to the French civilisation . Works of Kulturgeschichte (culture history) were produced by a number of German scholars, particularly Gustav Klemm , from 1780 onwards, reflecting

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3150-711: The continent. The area of its origin remains unclear, though the development of fluted Clovis points appears to have occurred in North America south of the Laurentide Ice Sheet and not in Beringia . The Clovis culture may have originated from the Dyuktai lithic style widespread in Beringia. While some authors have suggested that the Clovis culture resulted from diffusion of traditions through an already pre-existing Paleoindian population, others have asserted that

3225-489: The culture likely originated from the expansion of a single population. In Western North America, the Clovis culture was contemporaneous with and perhaps preceded by the Western Stemmed Tradition , which produced unfluted projectile points, with the Western Stemmed Tradition continuing in the region for several thousand years after the end of Clovis. The end of the Clovis culture may have been driven by

3300-505: The decline of the megafauna that the Clovis hunted, as well as decreasing mobility, resulting in local differentiation of lithic and cultural traditions across North America. This is generally considered to be the result of normal cultural change through time. There is no evidence that the disappearance of the Clovis culture was the result of the onset of the Younger Dryas, or that there was a population decline of Paleoindians following

3375-468: The earlier New World peoples and continue through the southwestern archaic, and into the historic period. Investigations at Blackwater Draw have recovered protein residue on Clovis weapons , indicating their use as hunting and possibly butchering tools on extinct Pleistocene animals. Towards the end of the Pleistocene period, the climate began to change, which brought warmer and drier weather, causing

3450-748: The earliest recognisable archaeological culture in North America, were suggested to represent the earliest inhabitants of the Americas south of the Laurentide Ice Sheet . However, since the beginning of the 21st century, this hypothesis has been abandoned by most researchers, as several widely accepted sites, notably Monte Verde II in Chile (c. 14,500 years BP) as well as Paisley Caves in Oregon (c. 14,200 years BP) and Cooper's Ferry in Idaho (c. 15,800 years BP) are suggested to be considerably older than

3525-505: The end of the Clovis culture. The Clovis culture was succeeded by various regional point styles, such as the Folsom tradition in central North America, the Cumberland point in mid/southern North America, the Suwannee and Simpson points in the southeast, and the Gainey points in the northeast-Great Lakes region. The Clovis and Folsom traditions may have overlapped, perhaps for around 80–400 years. A number of authors have suggested that

3600-406: The equipment associated with the brewing of tea varies greatly across the world. Social relations to material culture often include notions of identity and status . Advocates of culture-historical archaeology use the notion to argue that sets of material culture can be used to trace ancient groups of people that were either self-identifying societies or ethnic groups . Archaeological culture

3675-599: The excavations and visitations at the site. The 3,200-acre (1,300 ha) Anderson Basin district around Blackwater Draw in Roosevelt County, near Clovis and Portales was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1961 and incorporated into the National Register of Historic Places in 1966. The original Blackwater Draw Museum was first opened to the public in 1969, at 42987 Highway 70, Portales, New Mexico primarily to display artifacts uncovered at

3750-405: The expressions of cultural ideas or norms. (...) This approach (...) was termed "culture history" by many (...). This view of culture would be "entirely satisfactory if the aim of archaeology was solely the definition and description of these entities." However, as the 1960s rolled around and archaeology sought to be more scientific, archaeologists wanted to do more than just describe artifacts, and

3825-401: The first in situ Folsom point with the bones of the extinct bison species Bison antiquus . This confirmation of a human presence in the Americas during the Pleistocene inspired many people to start looking for evidence of early humans. In 1929, 19-year-old Ridgely Whiteman, who had been closely following the excavations in nearby Folsom in the newspapers, discovered the Clovis site near

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3900-536: The first professionally excavated Clovis site, in August 1932, and visited Whiteman and his Blackwater Draw site. By November, Howard was back at Blackwater Draw to investigate additional finds from a construction project. The American Journal of Archaeology , in its January–March 1932 edition, mentions Howard's work in Burnet Cave, including the discovery of extinct fauna and a "Folsom type" point 4 ft below

3975-706: The greater Southwest obtained from private collections. Currently, the Miles Collection displays Southwestern pottery, basketry, and textiles. As of August 2017, Blackwater Draw is under the direction of Dr. Brendon Asher of ENMU in Portales . The museum hired its first Collections Manager in 2020, Samantha Bomkamp. The museum and site operate under the supervision of the Eastern New Mexico University's Department of Anthropology and Applied Archaeology . ENMU students are able to work at

4050-550: The hunting and extinction of large herbivores having a knock-on effect causing the extinction of large carnivores. This suggestion has been the subject of controversy. The timing of megafauna extinction in North America also coincides with major climatic changes, making it difficult to disentangle the effects of various factors. In a 2012 survey of archaeologists in The SAA Archaeological Record , 63% of respondents said that megafauna extinctions were likely

4125-433: The idea that they were continually resharpened "long-life" tools has been questioned. The shape and size of Clovis points varies significantly over space and time; the largest points exceed 10 centimetres (3.9 in) in length. The points required considerable effort to make and often broke during knapping, particularly during fluting. The fluting may have served to make the finished points more durable during use by acting as

4200-416: The manufacture of a biface are struck from prepared edges of a piece and travel from one edge across the face", with limited removal of the opposite edge. Whether or not the overshot flaking was intentional on the part of the stoneknapper has been contested, with other authors suggesting that overface flaking (where flakes that travel past the midline but terminate before reaching the opposite end are removed)

4275-468: The more general " culture history " approach to archaeology that he began did replace social evolutionism as the dominant paradigm for much of the 20th century. Kossinna's basic concept of the archaeological culture, stripped of its racial aspects, was adopted by Vere Gordon Childe and Franz Boas , at the time the most influential archaeologists in Britain and America respectively. Childe, in particular,

4350-419: The oldest Clovis sites. Historically, it was suggested that the ancestors of the people who produced the Clovis culture migrated into North America along the " ice-free corridor ", but many later scholars have suggested that a migration along the Pacific coast is more likely. The Clovis culture is known from localities across North America, from southern Canada to northern Mexico and across the east and west of

4425-498: The point being finished using pressure flaking . Clovis blades —long flakes removed from specially prepared conical or wedge-shaped cores—are part of the global Upper Paleolithic blade tradition. Clovis blades are twice as long as they are wide and were used and modified to create a variety of tools, including endscrapers (used to scrape hides), serrated tools, and gravers. Unlike bifaces, Clovis blade cores do not appear to have been regularly transported over long distances, with only

4500-451: The result of a "combination of factors". The only known Clovis burial is that of Anzick-1 , an infant boy who was found near Wilsall, Montana , in 1968. The body was associated with over 100 stone and bone artifacts, all of which were stained with red ocher, and it dates to approximately 12,990–12,840 years BP. Sequencing of his genome demonstrates that he belonged to a population that is ancestral to many contemporary Indigenous peoples of

4575-399: The results obtained in a 2007 study by the same authors. Other authors have argued that some sites extend the range of the Clovis culture back to 13,500 years BP, though the dating for these earlier sites is not secure. Some scholars have supported a long chronology for Clovis of around 1,500 years. Historically, many authors argued for a "Clovis first" paradigm, where Clovis, which represents

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4650-630: The rods is unknown and has been subject to numerous hypotheses. Rods that were beveled on both ends are most often interpreted as foreshafts to which stone points were hafted, with a pair of rods surrounding each side of the point (or alternatively, the point being surrounded by a single beveled rod and the end of the wooden shaft,) while rods that are beveled on only one end, with the other being pointed, are most often interpreted as projectile points. The rods may have served other purposes, such as prybars. Clovis people are also known to have used ivory and bone to create projectile points. A distinctive feature of

4725-562: The stone tools found at a site were hundreds of kilometers away from the source stone outcrop, in one case over 900 kilometres (560 mi) away. The people who produced the Clovis culture probably had a low population density but with geographically extensive cultural networks. The Clovis culture is suggested to have heavily utilized hides, wood, and natural fibres, though no direct evidence of this has been preserved. Clovis culture artifacts have often been found associated with big game, including proboscideans ( Columbian mammoth , mastodon , and

4800-578: The time of the Clovis culture, followed by subsequent migration of these populations later in the Holocene . Like other Native Americans, Anzick-1 is closely related to Siberian peoples , confirming the Asian origin of the Clovis culture. He belongs to Y chromosome Haplogroup Q-L54 , which is common among contemporary Native Americans, and to mitochondrial haplogroup D4h3a, which is rare among contemporary Native Americans (occurring in only 1.4%, primarily along

4875-487: The type artifact or type site that defines the culture. For example, cultures may be named after pottery types such as Linear Pottery culture or Funnelbeaker culture . More frequently, they are named after the site at which the culture was first defined such as the Hallstatt culture or Clovis culture . Since the term "culture" has many different meanings, scholars have also coined a more specific term paleoculture, as

4950-409: The type of fluted point thereafter associated with megafauna (especially mammoths) at over a dozen other archaeological sites in North America would have been more appropriately named "Dent" rather than Clovis, the town near Blackwater Draw that gave the type of point its name. A feature considered to be distinctive of the Clovis tradition is overshot flaking, which is defined as flakes that "during

5025-874: The use of red ochre , and engraved stones. The best-known examples of this were found at the Gault site in Texas and consist of limestone nodules incised with expressive geometric patterns, some of which mimic leaf patterns. Clovis peoples, like other Paleoindian cultures, used red ocher for a variety of artistic and ritual purposes, including burials, and to cover objects in caches. Clovis peoples are known to have transported ocher 100 kilometres (62 mi) from its original outcrop. They are also suggested to have produced beads out of animal bones. Clovis hunter-gatherers are characterized as "high-technology foragers" who utilized sophisticated technology to maintain access to resources under conditions of high mobility. In many Clovis localities,

5100-414: The water flow in the region to dramatically decrease. This decrease caused small seasonal lake basins called playas to form. These areas became popular hunting locations for early North Americans. In that period the site had a number of active springs. A number of lithics were found in the sandy spring drains. The usual assumption is that they were discarded into the springs though it has been suggested there

5175-540: Was a ritual component. Since its discovery, the Blackwater Locality No. 1 site has been a focal point for scientific investigations by academic institutions and organizations from across the country. The Carnegie Institute , Smithsonian Institution , Academy of Natural Sciences , National Science Foundation , United States National Museum , National Geographic Society , and more than a dozen major universities either have funded or participated in research at Blackwater Draw. Eastern New Mexico University owns and manages

5250-571: Was being commercially mined for gravel with a number of mammoth and bison kill stations being uncovered. In another part of Blackwater draw known as the Mitchell Locality a large Folsom period campsite was excavated in the 1980s. A number of lithics were recovered including some with bison and pronghorn blood residue. Evidence of "fluted" points, spearheads now known as Clovis points (a New World invention) and other stone and bone weapons, tools, and processing implements were found at

5325-641: Was believed to be a monolithic culture is shown by further study to be discrete societies. For example, the Windmill Hill culture now serves as a general label for several different groups that occupied southern Great Britain during the Neolithic . Conversely, some archaeologists have argued that some supposedly distinctive cultures are manifestations of a wider culture, but they show local differences based on environmental factors such as those related to Clactonian man. Conversely, archaeologists may make

5400-576: Was particularly interested in reconstructing the movements of what he saw as the direct prehistoric ancestors of Germans, Slavs, Celts and other major Indo-European ethnic groups in order to trace the Aryan race to its homeland or Urheimat . The strongly racist character of Kossinna's work meant it had little direct influence outside of Germany at the time (the Nazi Party enthusiastically embraced his theories), or at all after World War II. However,

5475-435: Was responsible for formulating the definition of archaeological culture that is still largely applies today. He defined archaeological culture as artifacts and remains that consistently occur together. This introduced a "new and discrete usage of the term which was significantly different from current anthropological usage." His definition in particular was purely a classifying device to order the archaeological data. Though he

5550-551: Was sceptical about identifying particular ethnicities in the archaeological record and inclined much more to diffusionism than migrationism to explain culture change, Childe and later culture-historical archaeologists, like Kossinna, still equated separate archaeological cultures with separate "peoples". Later archaeologists have questioned the straightforward relationship between material culture and human societies. The definition of archaeological cultures and their relationship to past people has become less clear; in some cases, what

5625-408: Was the primary goal. Other elements considered distinctive of the Clovis culture tool complex include "raw material selectivity; distinctive patterns of flake and blade platform preparation, thinning and flaking; characteristic biface size and morphology, including the presence of end-thinning; and the size, curvature and reduction strategies of blades". It has long been recognised that the definition of

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