72-534: The Meadowcroft Rockshelter is an archaeological site which is located near Avella in Jefferson Township, Pennsylvania . The site is a rock shelter in a bluff overlooking Cross Creek (a tributary of the Ohio River ), and contains evidence that the area may have been continually inhabited for more than 19,000 years. If accurately dated, it would be one of the earliest known sites with evidence of
144-619: 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
216-550: A lanceolate projectile point, and chipping debris. Recoveries of note also include fluted points, which are a marker of the Paleoindian period. Remains of flint from Ohio, jasper from eastern Pennsylvania and marine shells from the Atlantic coast suggest that the people inhabiting the area were mobile and involved in long-distance trade. At least one basin-shaped hearth was reused over time. Meadowcroft has also yielded
288-664: 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,
360-445: 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
432-494: A Geographical Information Systems (GIS) and that will contain both locational information and a combination of various information. This tool is very helpful to archaeologists who want to explore in a different area and want to see if anyone else has done research. They can use this tool to see what has already been discovered. With this information available, archaeologists can expand their research and add more to what has already been found. Traditionally, sites are distinguished by
504-641: A Pennsylvania Commonwealth Treasure, and as an official project of Save America's Treasures . The rockshelter is a natural formation beneath an overhanging cliff of Morgantown-Connellsville sandstone , which is a thick Pennsylvanian -age sandstone, brown in color. Meadowcroft is in the Allegheny Plateau , northwest of the Appalachian Basin . Native Americans left the site during the American Revolutionary War . It
576-519: 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
648-607: A human presence and continuous human occupation in the New World. The site is located twenty-seven miles west-southwest of Pittsburgh in the Pittsburgh metropolitan area . The site operates as a division of the Heinz History Center of Pittsburgh and has a museum and a reconstruction of a circa 1570s Monongahela culture Indian village. Meadowcroft Rockshelter is recognized as a National Historic Landmark ,
720-683: A sequence of natural geological or organic deposition, in the absence of human activity, to constitute a site worthy of study. Archaeological sites usually form through human-related processes but can be subject to natural, post-depositional factors. Cultural remnants which have been buried by sediments are, in many environments, more likely to be preserved than exposed cultural remnants. Natural actions resulting in sediment being deposited include alluvial (water-related) or aeolian (wind-related) natural processes. In jungles and other areas of lush plant growth, decomposed vegetative sediment can result in layers of soil deposited over remains. Colluviation ,
792-412: A site as well. Development-led archaeology undertaken as cultural resources management has the disadvantage (or the benefit) of having its sites defined by the limits of the intended development. Even in this case, however, in describing and interpreting the site, the archaeologist will have to look outside the boundaries of the building site. According to Jess Beck in "How Do Archaeologists Find Sites?"
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#1732765809023864-453: A site worthy of study. Different archaeologists may see an ancient town, and its nearby cemetery as being two different sites, or as being part of the same wider site. The precepts of landscape archaeology attempt to see each discrete unit of human activity in the context of the wider environment, further distorting the concept of the site as a demarcated area. Furthermore, geoarchaeologists or environmental archaeologists would also consider
936-500: Is a branch of survey becoming more and more popular in archaeology, because it uses different types of instruments to investigate features below the ground surface. It is not as reliable because although they can see what is under the surface of the ground, it does not produce the best picture. Archaeologists still have to dig up the area in order to uncover the truth. There are also two most common types of geophysical survey, which is, magnetometer and ground penetrating radar. Magnetometry
1008-412: Is a place (or group of physical sites) in which evidence of past activity is preserved (either prehistoric or historic or contemporary), and which has been, or may be, investigated using the discipline of archaeology and represents a part of the archaeological record . Sites may range from those with few or no remains visible above ground, to buildings and other structures still in use. Beyond this,
1080-587: 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
1152-473: Is further defined by surveys done in the Cross Creek watershed, where other lanceolate points, small prismatic blades, and small polyhedral blade cores have been recovered. According to Adovasio et al., this complex has a Eurasiatic and Siberian appearance. These authors also note that small blades and polyhedral cores are absent from subsequent Paleoindian fluted-point assemblages in this region, reinforcing
1224-488: 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
1296-440: 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
1368-629: Is the technique of measuring and mapping patterns of magnetism in the soil. It uses an instrument called a magnetometer, which is required to measure and map traces of soil magnetism. The ground penetrating radar is a method that uses radar pulses to image the subsurface. It uses electromagnetic radiation in the microwave band of the radio spectrum and detects the reflected signals from subsurface structures. There are many other tools that can be used to find artifacts, but along with finding artifacts, archaeologists have to make maps. They do so by taking data from surveys, or archival research and plugging it into
1440-683: 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 ,
1512-488: 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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#17327658090231584-643: 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
1656-466: 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,
1728-574: The 1990s, more recent work has also been undertaken by Adovasio through the Mercyhurst Archaeological Institute. The methods of excavation used at Meadowcroft are still seen as state-of-the-art. It is viewed as one of the most carefully excavated sites in North America. Meadowcroft has produced what may be pre-Clovis remains, found as deep as 11.5 feet underground. The site also has yielded many tools, including pottery , bifaces , bifacial fragments, lamellar blades ,
1800-526: 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
1872-505: 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,
1944-402: 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
2016-425: 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
2088-845: 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
2160-629: 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
2232-641: 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
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2304-824: The Early Triangular type. Some similar finds were made at the Page-Ladson site in Florida as well. Because of the very long occupational sequence at Meadowcroft, it became a very important site and is seen as quite valuable for comparative analysis: The Pre-Clovis artifacts from Meadowcroft Rockshelter include a lanceolate point (named the Miller Lanceolate), bifaces, unifaces, prismatic blades, core fragments, and debitage. Remains from other Pre-Clovis sites (e.g., Cactus Hill and Saltville , Virginia, Topper , South Carolina, etc.) are usually compared to
2376-606: The Meadowcroft assemblage. In addition, claims for Pre-Clovis inhabitants in other sections of the New World also are evaluated with Meadowcroft in mind. According to some scholars, Clovis, Folsom, and other fluted point complexes may have derived from such unfluted lanceolate points. Other sites in the northeastern United States with evidence of possible pre-Clovis human presence include: Burning Tree Mastodon (Ohio), Mitchell Farm (Delaware), Barton ( Barton Village Site , Maryland), Miles Point, and Parsons Island. Renovations to
2448-524: 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
2520-583: The area, and if they have the money and time for the site, they can start digging. There are many ways to find sites, one example can be through surveys. Surveys involve walking around analyzing the land and looking for artifacts. It can also involve digging, according to the Archaeological Institute of America, "archaeologists actively search areas that were likely to support human populations, or in places where old documents and records indicate people once lived." This helps archaeologists in
2592-573: The areas with numerous artifacts are good targets for future excavation, while areas with a small number of artifacts are thought to reflect a lack of past human activity. Many areas have been discovered by accident. The most common people who have found artifacts are farmers who are plowing their fields or just cleaning them up, and they often find archaeological artifacts. Many people who are out hiking and even pilots find artifacts, and they usually end up reporting them to archaeologists for further investigation. When they find sites, they have to first record
2664-607: 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
2736-566: 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
2808-428: The burial of a site by sediments moved by gravity (called hillwash ) can also happen at sites on slopes. Human activities (both deliberate and incidental) also often bury sites. It is common in many cultures for newer structures to be built atop the remains of older ones. Urban archaeology has developed especially to deal with these sorts of site. Many sites are the subject of ongoing excavation or investigation. Note
2880-492: 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
2952-508: 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
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3024-428: The definition and geographical extent of a "site" can vary widely, depending on the period studied and the theoretical approach of the archaeologist. It is almost invariably difficult to delimit a site. It is sometimes taken to indicate a settlement of some sort, although the archaeologist must also define the limits of human activity around the settlement. Any episode of deposition, such as a hoard or burial, can form
3096-509: The difference between archaeological sites and archaeological discoveries. Clovis culture 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
3168-753: 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
3240-733: The east and west of 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
3312-511: 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
3384-462: 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
3456-537: 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
3528-420: The future. In case there is no time or money during the site's discovery, archaeologists can come back and visit the site for further digging to find out the extent of the site. Archaeologist can also sample randomly within a given area of land as another form of conducting surveys. Surveys are very useful, according to Jess Beck, "it can tell you where people were living at different points in the past." Geophysics
3600-552: 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
3672-437: 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
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#17327658090233744-440: The largest collection of flora and fauna materials ever recovered from a location in eastern North America. The arid environment provided the necessary and rare conditions that permitted excellent botanical preservation. In total, animal remains representing 149 species were excavated. Evidence shows that people gathered smaller game animals as well as plants, such as corn , squash , fruits, nuts, and seeds. Radiocarbon dating of
3816-417: 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)
3888-400: 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
3960-501: 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
4032-471: The presence of both artifacts and features . Common features include the remains of hearths and houses. Ecofacts , biological materials (such as bones, scales, and even feces) that are the result of human activity but are not deliberately modified, are also common at many archaeological sites. In the cases of the Palaeolithic and Mesolithic eras, a mere scatter of flint flakes will also constitute
4104-453: 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
4176-402: 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
4248-454: The rock shelter in 2008 were made so that visitors can see some of the tools and campfires made by the first Americans thousands of years ago. The rockshelter is recognized as a Pennsylvania Commonwealth Treasure and is an official project of Save America's Treasures . The historic site also includes a recreation of a 16th-century Monongahela village as well as 18th and 19th century buildings from European and United States settlement. The site
4320-633: 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
4392-516: The site indicated occupancy beginning 16,000 years ago (14,000 BCE) and possibly as early as 19,000 years ago (17,000 BCE). However, the dates are still controversial. A recent (2013) survey carried out by the Society for American Archaeology reported support from 38% of archaeologists, with 20% rejecting the early dates. Criticism of these early radiocarbon dates has focused on the potential for contamination by ancient carbon from coal-bearing strata in
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#17327658090234464-566: 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
4536-529: The technological distinctiveness of the Miller complex. The adjacent Krajacic Site is located about ten miles southeast of Meadowcroft, and it is also important in defining the Miller complex. This site yielded a great variety of distinctive Meadowcroft-style blade implements and several small, cylindrical polyhedral cores. At Cactus Hill in Virginia , similar points have been found, where they are dubbed as
4608-580: 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
4680-410: 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
4752-880: 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,
4824-460: The watershed. The samples, tested by an independent third party geomorphologist, concluded that the samples showed no evidence of groundwater activity. Tests performed via accelerator mass spectrometry also support the earlier dates. Proponents of the notion that contamination occurred note that the alkali-soluble humates in charcoal samples from the site are older than the charcoal in the samples. If authentic, these dates would indicate that Meadowcroft
4896-650: Was found at the site, which has been named the Miller Lanceolate projectile point . Similar unfluted lanceolate points have also been found at the adjacent sites. As Goodyear writes: Enough lithic artifacts were recovered to define the Miller complex. This complex consists of thin bifaces, including one lanceolate point, the Miller Lanceolate; small prismatic blades; retouched flake tools and blades, and debitage related to late-stage core and biface reduction and tool kit maintenance. The Miller complex
4968-654: Was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978. In 1999, the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission installed a historical marker noting the historic importance of the site. It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 2005. It is also designated as a historic public landmark by the Washington County History & Landmarks Foundation . Archaeological site An archaeological site
5040-616: Was not rediscovered until many years later, when, in 1955, Albert Miller found the first artifacts in a groundhog burrow. Miller delayed reporting his findings so as to not attract vandals, until he contacted James M. Adovasio , who led the first excavations of the site in 1973 until 1979 by the Cultural Resource Management Program of the University of Pittsburgh . Further University of Pittsburgh field school excavations were conducted through 1989. Since
5112-410: 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
5184-463: Was used in the pre- Clovis era and, as such, provides evidence for very early human habitation of the Americas . Meadowcroft Rockshelter may be one of the oldest known sites of human habitation in North America, providing a unique glimpse into the lives of prehistoric hunters and gatherers. Paleoindian , Archaic , and Woodland remains have all been found at the site. An unusual type of arrowhead
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