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/54. Possible Relatives in the Americas/
/Clovis People (New Mexico, USA) and/
/Minnesota Woman (Minnesota, USA)/
/by George Weber/
------------------------------------------------------------------------
/Table of Contents/
The Clovis (Blackwater) Site <#site>
List of major Clovis Sites in the US <#sitelist>
Clovis Tools <#tools>
Who were the Clovis people? <#who?>
Minnesota Woman (Pelican Rapids Woman) <#Pelikan>
Why so few human remains? <#sofew>
How did the Clovis people live? <#howlive?>
Clovis into Folsom <#Folsom>
Clovis Geography and the ice-free corridor <#geography>
Clovis first? <#first>
Was there a European as well as an Asian Connection? <#Europe>
The inevitable "Clovis Theory to Explain Everything <#theory>"
Location of the Clovis type site in New Mexico
The Clovis site is not only an important site for early American
prehistory in itself but is also the first of many sites were the
so-called "Clovis type" of stone tools were found
*/The Clovis (Blackwater) Site/*
The first scientific excavations at the Clovis site (also called
Blackwater Locality no. 1) south of the town of Clovis near Portales)
were carried out by Dr. E. B. Howard and Dr. John Cotter between 1932
and 1936. Later excavations 1948 to 1956 documented the existence of
Clovis people and dated the population as "older than Folsom". Today it
is thought that the Clovis people settled in the area where their tools
have been found sometime around 13,500 years ago.
Early excavation methods were brutal: even dynamite was employed in the
1950s to shift the 6-10 m of material above the Clovis-age gravel
layers, destroying valuable younger strata in the process.
Gravel mining posed a threat to the site's continued existence and it
was not not until 1978 that one of the most important archaeological
site of the US was acquired by the by Eastern New Mexico University. The
1983-1984 investigations revealed 800 meters of /in situ/ cultural
deposits on the southwest side and a camp site also probably awaits
excavation around the former shores of an ancient lake.
*/List of major Clovis Sites in the US in 2007/*
Adapted from /Science/ (23 February 2007, 315:1122-1126. Ranged in order
of credibility of dates and age. Only the 17 most reliably dated US
Clovis sites plus Cactus Hill (of 26 given in the /Science/ article) are
shown here.
Site name
US
State
C14 years before the present, with uncertainty range
Remarks
1
Lange-Ferguson
SD
11,080 ± 40 years
credible dating, Clovis diagnostics
2
Sloth Hole
FL
11,050 ± 50 years
credible dating, Clovis diagnostics
3
Anzick <../text-usa/text-nagpra.htm>
MT
11,040 ± 35 years
credible dating, Clovis diagnostics
4
Dent
CO
10,990 ± 25 years
credible dating, Clovis diagnostics
5
Paleo Crossing
OH
10,980 ± 75 years
credible dating, Clovis diagnostics
6
Domebo
OK
10,960 ± 30 years
credible dating, Clovis diagnostics
7
Lehner
AZ
10,950 ± 40 years
credible dating, Clovis diagnostics
8
Shawnee-Minisink
PA
10,935 ± 15 years
credible dating, Clovis diagnostics
9
Murray Springs
AZ
10,885 ± 50 years
credible dating, Clovis diagnostics
10
Colby
WY
10,870 ± 20 years
credible dating, Clovis diagnostics
11
Jake Bluff
OK
10,765 ± 25 years
credible dating, Clovis diagnostics
12
East Wenatchee
WA
11, 125 ± 130 years
indirectly dated, Clovis diagnostics
13
Indian Creek
MT
10,980 ± 110 years
indirectly dated, Clovis diagnostics
14
Lubbock Lake
TX
11,100 ± 60 years
indirectly dated, Clovis diagnostics
15
Bonneville Estates
NV
11,010 ± 40 years
indirectly dated, Clovis diagnostics
16
Kanarado
KS
10,980 ± 40 years
indirectly dated, Clovis diagnostics;
additional information received April 2008: very few artefacts found and
Clovis diagnostic questioned*
17
Arlington Springs <../text-StaRosa/text-StaRosa.htm>
CA
10,960 ± 80 years
indirectly dated, Clovis diagnostics
20
Cactus Hill <../text-CactusHill/text-CactusHill.htm>
VA
10,920 ± 250 years
dating problematic
*The same source has pointed out to us that Steve Holen of the Denver
Museum has published on La Sena and Lovewell where he acquired C14 dates
of butchering
16,730 ± 490 to 18,000 ± 190 years before the present (at La Sena) and
ca. 18,000 years before the present (at Lovewell).
See also:
- http://www.pbs.org/saf/1406/resources/transcript.htm
- http://www.larryjzimmerman.com/plains/paleo.html
*/Clovis tools
/*
Two of the famous fluted Clovis stone points.
The points are thin, fluted projectile objects created from bifacially
pressure flaking flint, chert or other materials. Clovis points have a
concave groove running longitudinally along them are thought to have
been used when fastening the points to wooden spears or short shafts
which were then mounted into sockets on heavier spear shafts. This
provided for "reloadable" spears. Spears were thrown by hand or with the
aid of an/ atlatl/ (spearthrower).
They appeared, somewhat mysteriously, out of nowhere but fully-developed
in northern America around 13,500 years ago.
How Clovis points
were mounted
Besides their fluted points, Clovis people also made a wide variety of
other tool types:
left: a bone rod with markings along its side, purpose unknown
top middle: a core remnant
bottom right: a uniface tool of Jasper, used as a scraper (length: 16 cm)
Around 9000 years ago, Clovis tools were replaced by a new technology,
the Folsom type.
For more on Clovis tool types see
- http://lithiccastinglab.com/gallery-pages/2000decemberwenatcheeclovis.htm
- http://www.primtech.net/ivory/ivory.html
*/Who were the Clovis people? /*
We do not know. Except for the few bones of the "Anzick child" from
Montana (estimated to be around 10,800 years old, see The NAGPRA
Follies: ancient human finds in the USA endangered or destroyed
<../text-usa/text-nagpra.htm>) and tool-less but probably Clovis
Minnesota Woman <#Pelikan>, also known as Pelican Rapids Woman, more
than 10,000 years old, no human remains have yet been found associated
with Clovis tools and most unfortunately, Minnesota Woman also is not
directly associated with Clovis stone tools although she is of the right
age. It could well be that "Clovis" represents not a unified people but
many tribes of possibly widely different origins and ancestry who all
adopted the new and manifestly superior Clovis tool technology.
Apart from the Siberian and Solutrean possibility discussed below (which
has the support of some evidence in tool types), there are a number of
other theories. One other is the possibility that the enigmatic Ainu
people of Japan could be related to the first Americans. But then the
Ainu since the 19th century have been related to any mystery going. Itis
possible but there is no hard evidence. Modern genetics may be able to
solve the ridddle without new archaeological discoveries but it has not
done so yet and in the case of the Minnesota Woman (see text below) it
does not seem interested in doing so.
Clovis tools are found in a very large area as shown in the map below.
Nothing is known of Clovis origins, composition, affinities to other
populations, social organisation or religious beliefs. One can only
assume that they were organized into tribes, perhaps at times at war
with each other, just as were the later Amerind populations found by the
first European settlers. It is possible that the Clovis people were the
ancestors of most of the later Amerind tribes of North America. Until
remains of Clovis people are found and their DNA extracted (if
permission is given and the evidence is not destroyed under NAGPRA),
there will be no answers.
See also in this chapter "Clovis First? <#first>", "A European
Connection <#Europe>" and "A Little Theory to Explain Everything <#theory>".
*/Minnesota Woman (Pelican Rapids Woman)/*
Location of Minnesota Woman
Except for the few endangered bones of the Anzick child
<../text-usa/text-nagpra.htm#Anzick> in Montana, the Minnesota Woman
found in 1931 is unique: no other human remains from the Clovis period
have been unearthed before or since. One would expect under the
circumstances that hordes of Clovis experts and geneticists would fight
over the chance to sample the remains. Far from it. The delightful and
informative web-site of Otter Tail County, Minnesota (to which we credit
the photographs reproduced here) is one of the few sites that deals with
the the subject in some detail. Yet even they start off by saying that
"many local residents have forgotten, but Pelikan Rapids rates a
prominent place in state history..." It does indeed - because of this
find. The locals have even set a up a splendid monument to her. Prodded
by Minnesota feminists (who were upset at the find being called a "Man")
in 1976, the legislature agreed and officially renamed it "the Minnesota
Woman."
Not only the locals seem to have largely forgotten, Clovis experts also
do ot appear to care much. The latter might be discouraged from taking
an interest in or making a noise about human remains by the NAGPRA
follies <../text-usa/text-nagpra.htm>, or by the fact that no stone
tools were associated with the young woman.
Still, even so, a little interest shown by the experts (and especially
by geneticists) in the very nearly unique human remains from the Clovis
periodcould in all fairness be expected. But there is little evidence of
scientific interest. While in 1931 bones could only be measured up and
compared to other bones, today the same bones can be made to talk and
even sing - by the genetic methods DNA analysis. Has this been done on
the Minnesota woman? There is not one word to be found on it.
There were no stone tools with the bones but the 15-year old young woman
had a conch shell pendant and a dagger from elk's horn with her at her
time of her death. She seems to have drowned in an accident and was
never found by her own people. Over the centuries and millennia her body
at the bottom of the lake or river was covered by mud along with clam
and mussel shells.
Skull of the Minnesota Woman
Front and back of decorative conch-shell
Dagger
Even though the young woman cannot be directly and unambiguously tied to
Clovis since the characteristic tools are missing (how thoughtless of
her to go out without a full set of Clovis tool types on her), she lived
in a solidly Clovis area and very likely within the time-span of Clovis.
Even at the time of discovery it was clear immediately that the woman
must have died a very long time ago. Her remains were found deep beneath
the layers laid down much later in the area by glacial Lake Pelican
which had formed at the end of the ice age and. It is vaguely estimated
that the woman died "sometime between 10,000 and 20,000 years". If she
is at the younger end of this age scale, she would be firmly in the
Clovis age while at the older end she would be even more sensational
than if she was Clovis. Finds dating beyond 15,000 years ago are almost
unheard of in northern America until very recently.
Definitvely, this find should be looked at again.
*/How did the Clovis people live?/*
Most Clovis sites found so far are ephemeral, i.e. they were not places
where families lived but sites where game was killed and processed.
However, one site in Ventana Cave (southwest Arizona, estimated to be
around 9,300 years old) appears to be a little more substantial: it
seems to have been a base camp for a small band consisting of a few
families. Grinding stones were found there, indicating that plants were
an an important food ressource. Artefacts recovered from sites such as
Ventana indicate that Clovis people were obtaining high quality lithic
materials from as far away as 300 km. They must have done so either by
being highly mobile or that there was an extensive trade network for the
exchange of goods.
*/Why so few human remains?/*
Why have so few (indeed, virtually none) clearly Clovis human remains
been found? Even Minnesota Woman, although dating from Clovis times,
cannot be definitively called Clovis since she had no Clovis tools on
her and - perhaps significantly! - she died accidentally. The absence of
Clovis bones is a mystery and there is no clear explanation. Bad luck on
the part of the excavators is wearing a bit thin after so many decades
and very numerous finds of Clovis tool sites. It is becoming more likely
as time goes on that the way the Clovis people dealt with their dead
must have something to do with it. There are quite a number of
hunter-gatherer and other societies who expose their dead to the sky (on
specially constructed platforms, in trees, etc). The famous Parsi
"Towers of Silence also sprint to mind; they may be a survival of such
ancient parctices into modern dtimes. The Andamanese also painted their
most respected dead with ochre and laid them out on platforms. Others
were buried and then excavated again. The bones of both ways of dealing
with the dead produced de-fleshed, dry bones and skulls that were then
carried around by family members and others as a sign of respect or for
decoration (see Andaman Chapter 19 <../../chapter19/text19.htm>, with
photographs). Of course, if the Clovis people had such customs, few
human bones would survive to be found today by archaeologists.
*/Clovis into Folsom/*
Around 9,000 years ago, the Clovis culture was forced to adapt to a
major climate change. It became much drier and mass extinctions among
large animals that were a favourite target of Clovis hunters followed.
It is possible that the extinction of the megafauna was additionally
accelerated by over-hunting.
Clovis was succeeded by the Folsom people who probably were Clovis
having adapted to the new climate. The Folsom tools do not differ
fundamentally from Clovis: for example Folsom stone points were thinner
and smaller than their Clovis forerunner and they may have introduced
the /atlatl/, the spear-thrower.
The Folsom type site is also in New Mexico, 120 km north of the Clovis
type site.
Our main interest here is in the origins of the First Americans" so we
will not go further into the Folsom culture and its many successors.
Folsom will become of major interest to us only if and when Folsom human
remains are found and can be genetically DNA typed.
*/Clovis geography and the ice-free corridor/*
The Clovis tool makers were people with a highly advanced stone
technology and large-game hunting techniques. Their tools are to
beautifully made that they are works of art. They are not only
beautiful, they also were efficient - Clovis points have been found
embedded in the remains of dead mammoths. The pattern of Clovis tools
found (see map below) and other considerations makes an origin in
Siberia most likely but, strangely, no Clovis-type tools or convincing
forerunners have been found in Siberia todate. It remains a mystery
where the Clovis people came from and where they developed their hunting
technology and skills
Clovis sites
The gray tones indicate the
*density of Clovis tool sites *
found in a given area
(green indicating no sites):
dark gray: high density
medium gray: medium density
light gray: low density
Black numbers refer to site names::
1 - Tanana
2 - East Wenatchee
3 - Lower Clamath
4 - Anzick
5 - Sheaman
6 - Clovis (Black Water Draw)
7 - Murray Springs
8 - Wakulla Spring
9 - Itchtucknee River
10 - Grenfel
Black dots indicate other important Clovis sites not named here.
Red numbers refer to human remains of possible Clovis affiliations:
*1 *- Minnesota woman
*2* - Anzick child
The ice-free corridor was probably permanently open after 12,000 years
ago and occasionally open before
The Ice-free corridor through which the first Clovis are thought to have
moved from Alaska (maps adapted from Virtual Museum Canada and
gratefully acknowledged (see http://www.sfu.museum/journey/)
*/Clovis first?/*
For many decades, the Clovis people were thought to have been the first
Americans, i.e. that they represent the earliest wave of migrants,
thought to have come across the Bering Strait from Asia into the
Americas. On the basis of the then available evidence, there was nothing
wrong with this assumption - initially.. Unfortunately, however, the
assumption hardened into an article of faith-with-fervour tin the US hat
/nothing /could be older than Clovis. This even lead to researchers not
digging below the Clovis horizon for fear ridicule. That there still is
a reasonable approach of doubting pre-Clovis is demonstrated by Robert
E. Kelly in his "Maybe we do know when the people first came to North
America; and what does it mean if we do?, /Quaternary International/ ,
2003, 109-110:133-145.
As more and more pre-Clovis sites are found, the strength of the "there
is no pre-Clovis" belief weakens. But it must also be said that the
accuracy and precision of C14 dates get progressively weaker and less
precise as we approach 50,000 years when C14 runs out completely (i.e.
there are no radioactivity to be measured even under best conditions).
As it happens, this is just be time when the oldest of the pre-Clovis
Topper site <../text-Topper/text-Topper.htm> levels are dated. There is
then at present a time gap in dating techniques until rather later when
other methods kick in.
One can only hope that new technologies are able to close this gap -
many laboratories all over the world are working on it.
The evidence at present indicates that the Clovis people were the
earliest humans in the Americas /that had a sizable population 12,000
years ago/. It is also possible that they are the earliest ancestors of
most of the modern Amerind people. However, traces of scattered older
populations with some tools arguably dating as far back as 50,000 years
have come to light. These early finds are so rare and so limited (with
no human remains found yet) that they are hard to interpret. There could
have been many different "wavelets" of migration or a steady trickle of
migrants over the millennia, forming small and early populations that
subsequently died out or were absorbed by later arrivals (such as the
Clovis people). Many more finds are needed before the chapter of the
oldest Americans can be written with any kind of confidence.
*"CLOVIS FIRST" DEAD - OFFICIAL*
The highly respected American journal /Science/ (23 February 2007,
315:1122-1126, has published the following paragraph as part of an
article by Michael R. Waters and Thomas W. Stafford Jr. "Redefining the
Age of Clovis: Implications for the peopling of the Americas". Even
though dates before 13,500 years ago are still not accepted (they are
very cautious indeed - fair enough!) , this is a major step in the right
direction for US archaeology. But it is old hat to Latin Americans.
The concluding paragraph of the aricle reads:
"There is an emerging archaeological record that supports a pre-Clovis
occupation of the Americas. Stone tools and butcjered mammoth remains
dating to ca. 12,500 C14 years before the present have been found at the
Schäfer and Hebior sites in Wisconsin. Older butchered mammoth remains
dating to ca. 13,500 C14 years before the present have been recovered
from the Mud Lake site, Wisconsin. In South America, humans appear to
have been present at 12,500 C14 years before the present at Monte Verde
<../text-MtVerde/text-MtVerde.htm>, Chile. *The archaeological data now
show that Clovis does not represent the earliest inhabitants of the
Americas and that a new model is needed to explain the peopling of the
Americas."*
* *
It is the "Clovis First" theory that is dead - not the reality and
importance of the Clovis stone tool industry itself!
*/Was there a European as well as an Asian connection?/*
Clovis tools appear suddenly in the archaeological record, out of
nowhere almost. No evidence inside or outside America has yet been found
to document the development of these tools, for example. However, the
search for possible Clovis fore-runners has brought to light a curious
similarity between Clovis tools and tools of the European Solutrean
stone industry. The latter flourished relatively briefly between 21,000
to 17,000 in western Europe and England before it was replaced abruptly
by the completely different Magdalenian culture (famous for its cave
paintings, e.g. Altamira in Spain and Lascaux in France). Stanford and
Bradley in 1999 suggested that Solutrean migrants from Europe could have
crossed the Atlantic to America along the southern edge of the then
still huge arctic ice sheets. It seemed a far-fetched idea at the time
and it is still difficult to believe that it was possible to cross the
violent ice-age Atlantic in what must have been small boats. Difficult
to believe but not absolutely out of the question. The fact is that we
do not know enough about the enviroment, the motivation, skills,
capabilities and knowledge of any ice-age people to make a valid judgment.
Supporters of this hypothesis suggest that stone tools found at Cactus
Hill <../text-CactusHill/text-CactusHill.htm> (knapped in a style
somewhere between that of Clovis and Solutrean) support the idea. Most
intriguing in this context is is the rare but definite presence of
haplotype X (see the chapter on Genetics <../../chapter6/text6.htm>)
among pre-Columbian populations. Haplotype X is known only from Europe
(and from Africa where /all /haplotypes occur). Improbable though this
may sound, it does seem to indicate European Solutrean travellers to the
Americas in prehistoric times. Could they have influenced or even
started Clovis sometime after 17,000 years ago? Having survived an
Atlantic crossing during the ice age, the Solutreans would have been
both physically tough and mentally flexible - and few in number. It
would explain why traces of Clovis do not appear until around 13,500
years ago and why no traces of its development have been found. The
oldest Clovis tools are not found on the Great Plains, or in the Great
Basin or Southwest of the US where one woulod expect them if the Clovis
people brought or developed their technology on the way from Siberia and
Alaska before fanning out across the continent. The oldest Clovis tools
are found in the eastern and southeastern regions of the US!
It does indeed fit, but until more discoveries are made, it is all
mostly interesting speculation without an abundance of supporting evidence.
Solutrean tools from France (the Solutrean in western Europe lasted from
aroiund 21,000 to 17,000 years ago)
*/The inevitable little "Clovis Theory to Explain Everything"/*
The map on the geographical spread of Clovis tools above does show a
faint but definitive trail of very early Clovis-age sites, precisely
where we would expect migrants from Siberia to pass through.The few
sites found so far may not be representative yet but it is noticeable
that the few stone tools found are of a non-Clovis style used in Siberia
since around 20,000 years ago. No Clovis tools have been found.
That trail then passes from Alaska passes through the narrow corridor to
the east of the Rocky Mountains that was free from glaciers from around
12,000 years ago (and probably sporadically before between glacial
maxima) . People travelling along this corridor would reach ice-free
open land just where there is a noticable concentration of Clovis sites.
The timing of the corridor's opening matches the dating of Clovis. Does
the concentration of Clovis tool sites at the exit point of the corridor
mark the point where the new arrivals from the northeast first met (and
adopted) the new hunting technologies?
Did Clovis come from Solutrean Europe or from Asia? Actually, it could
be both. Let us for the sake of argument propose a very early group of
people coming from Siberia who then spread out over what is now Canada
and the USA. Let us propose further that from the east there arrived a
few Solutrean refugees, equipped with the most advanced hunting
technology and skills of their day. The two groups got together in the
east where the Solutreans would have landed. The new Solutrean
technology andnative hunting prowess in combination was a huge success
and the technology soon spread over most of north America - Clovis was born.
This little theory will be hard to prove, agreed. I do not say it was
so, I merely point out that if true, it would explain at least
(1) the migratory trail from Siberia
(2) the Solutrean-style tools
(3) the rare but definitive presence of European haplotype X in ancient
Amerind people in North America
(4) the sudden hunting success of the Clovis people and its rapid spread
over much of northern America
(5) the population explosion that followed these hunting successes
(6) the sudden mass extinctions among large herbivore mammals (which was
caused mostly by a major climatic change but would well have been
aggravated by over-hunting)
The work of trying to explain Clovis goes on.
Among web-sites with further information are:
- http://www.cdarc.org/pages/library/peo_century.php
- http://www.crystalinks.com/clovis.html
- http://www.panhandlenation.com/prehistory/disc_arc/clovis.htm
- http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/programmes/tv/wildnewworld/ancestors.shtml
- http://www.ele.net/art_folsom/preclvis.htm
- http://www.cabrillo.edu/~crsmith/clovis.html
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