Environmental context for early human occupation in western North America

Abstract

Abstract In North America, the Clovis fluted point tradition represents the earliest widespread culture accepted without controversy. Originally formulated as the Llano-Clovis big-game hunting tradition (Sellards 1952), the complex was ar chaeologically indexed by the association of Clovis-type fluted points with extinct Pleistocene megafauna in buried, stratigraphic contexts from kill sites in the Great Plains and southwest dating 11840-10620 BP (Haynes eta/. 1984). The Clovis complex was later expanded into a pan-continental pattern based on broad similarities in fluted point forms, tool kits, and site types, and a site distribution ranging from Alaska to South America, and from the west-to-east coasts of North America. The presence of small, widely scattered, low density sites and isolated finds, with few large base camps suggested a low population density. The inferred adaptational pattern was one of small groups of highly mobile, wide ranging foragers and big-game hunters focusing on now-extinct Pleistocene fauna for food, shelter, and clothing (Haynes 1964, 1980).