V.

Challenges to Clovis-First

For decades the Clovis-first theory seemed to fit well with the available geologic and archaeological evidence. However, some archaeologists always harbored doubts about the Clovis-first scenario. These doubts intensified toward the end of the 20th century. A reassessment of Clovis subsistence led many to challenge the traditional view of Clovis people as big-game hunting specialists. In addition, the discovery of a pre-Clovis human presence in the Americas has undermined the claim that Clovis people were the first Americans.

A.

A Broader View of Clovis Subsistence

Since the 1980s there has been increasing skepticism about the traditional view that Clovis groups were dependent on big-game hunting. Despite many years of searching, few Clovis archaeological sites have yielded evidence to support this view. The San Pedro Valley sites have proved to be the exception, not the rule. There are scarcely a dozen Clovis big-game kill sites known, mostly in western North America, with two possible kill sites in eastern North America. These contain the skeletal remains of just two of the Pleistocene megafauna—mammoth and mastodon. Clovis people did kill big game, but apparently not as often as once supposed.

A.1.

Diverse Diet

A broader view of Clovis subsistence now suggests that they often targeted slower, smaller, less dangerous prey. The roasted remains of turtles, for example, have been found at many sites, including Aubrey and Lewisville in Texas, Little Salt Spring in Florida, and even at the original Clovis site in New Mexico. Other sites indicate that the diet in Clovis times included small- and medium-sized mammals, such as beaver, snowshoe hare, and caribou, as well as fish and a variety of gathered plants.

A.2.

Big-Game Extinctions: Other Causes

Over time, it also became clear that the Pleistocene overkill hypothesis was not strongly supported by the archaeological record. Archaeologists have yet to document a single Clovis sloth kill, horse kill, camel kill, or a kill of any of the other several dozen megafaunal species. Whatever caused the extinction of these animals, it was not human hunting. Scientists are currently pursuing alternative hypotheses to explain megafaunal extinctions, such as the possibility they were caused by late Pleistocene climatic and environmental change, or perhaps disease. The puzzle remains unsolved.

A.3.

Multipurpose Toolkit

A revised view of Clovis subsistence coincides with a reevaluation of the Clovis toolkit. Analysis of Clovis spearpoints shows they were adequate weapons for bringing down big game, but they were not always used that way. Few spearpoints show the kinds of damage that routinely occurs when stone projectiles meet animal bone. Clovis points, like many items in the Clovis toolkit, were most likely used as multipurpose tools; many spearpoints show wear patterns indicating they were used as knives. There is also more variety in the Clovis toolkit than traditionally supposed. Clovis groups in different areas occasionally fashioned tools needed for particular tasks in the environments in which they found themselves. In addition, they probably made tools—perhaps wooden digging sticks or woven plant fiber nets with which to catch fish or small game—that have not been preserved from that remote time. A varied, multipurpose toolkit is to be expected of groups that hunt and gather a range of foods.

A.4.

Clovis Explorers

If they were not pursuing wide-ranging big game, why were Clovis groups moving such great distances across the landscape? The answer may be exploration. Hunter-gatherer peoples need to know where to go when resources in one location begin to diminish, as animals are hunted out or flee and as available plants are gathered up. For colonizers in an unfamiliar landscape, that means ranging widely across newly discovered lands to see what resources occur where, when, and in what abundance. Not knowing where they might encounter stone to refurbish their tools on their journeys, it is not surprising that Clovis explorers selected only the highest quality stone for their toolkits, or that they left caches of tools along their way—as the cache in Colorado demonstrates. They could return to the caches to replace diminished supplies without having to walk all the way back to a distant stone quarry.

B.

Pre-Clovis Settlement of the Americas

Claims of a pre-Clovis human occupation in the Americas have been around for decades. By the 1980s, dozens of such sites had been reported, some estimated to be as much as 200,000 years old.

Archaeologists have carefully scrutinized each site to determine if three basic criteria are present. Sites lacking all three criteria cannot be accepted as valid. First, the site must have genuine artifacts produced by humans or human skeletal remains. Second, these artifacts or remains must be found in unmixed geological deposits to ensure that younger objects are not accidentally buried in older layers of sediment. Third, these artifacts or remains must be accompanied by reliable radiocarbon dates that indicate a pre-Clovis occupation. For decades all sites reputed to be of pre-Clovis age failed to meet these criteria. All, that is, except one.

B.1.

Breakthrough at Monte Verde

In the mid-1970s University of Kentucky archaeologist Tom Dillehay began excavating at Monte Verde, a site on the banks of Chinchihuapi Creek in southern Chile. Monte Verde is an extraordinary site. Unusual geological conditions quickly buried the remains of an ancient camp beneath wet, swampy sediments. Since the remains left on the surface by the site’s inhabitants were not exposed to the air, many organic remains—which normally decay and disappear—were preserved.

Dillehay’s team found an astonishing array of organic materials. These included wooden foundation timbers of roughly rectangular huts, finely woven string, and chewed leaves, seeds and other plant parts from nearby species—many with food or medicinal value. In addition, excavations revealed burned bones of mastodon along with pieces of its meat and hide. Some bits of hide still clung to pieces of wooden timbers, the apparent remnants of hide-coverings that once draped over the huts. Also found was the footprint of a child in the once-sticky mud, an assortment of hearths, and hundreds of stone, bone, and wood artifacts. Dillehay’s team firmly radiocarbon dated these organic remains to 12,500 years ago—1,000 years before Clovis times.

The excavations at Monte Verde lasted nearly a decade, and the laboratory research, analysis, and writing about what Dillehay’s team had found took another dozen years. Dillehay’s findings had to be carefully studied and presented in order to overcome the skepticism of archaeologists who had grown accustomed to seeing pre-Clovis claims fail. When Dillehay’s second book on the results of his investigations appeared in 1997, most archaeologists were convinced; the Clovis barrier had fallen at last.

B.2.

Other Possible Pre-Clovis Sites

Since Monte Verde, several new candidates for a pre-Clovis settlement in North America have appeared. The Cactus Hill site in Virginia has yielded artifacts below layers in which Clovis-like fluted points were found. Precisely how old those more deeply buried artifacts might be is uncertain, however. The layer in which they were found has produced widely varying radiocarbon ages, from 16,000 years ago to modern times. It therefore remains unclear how old these artifacts might be. Archaeologists have also refocused attention on the Meadowcroft Rockshelter in Pennsylvania. Excavations at Meadowcroft in the 1970s and 1980s produced unmistakable artifacts in deposits perhaps as much as 14,250 years old. Questions remain, however, about whether the artifacts and organic remains are as old as the radiocarbon-dated charcoal. For the time being, neither site, nor any of the other sprinkling of recent pre-Clovis claims, is fully accepted by a still-cautious archaeological community.