Clovis - Breaking Points (Notes)

The spearhead that transfixed American archaeologists for sixty years was uncovered in a dried up lake bed near Clovis, New Mexico in 1929.Mammoth bones found in the proximity enabled scientists to date this kill to 13,500 years ago, making the projectile then the oldest Stone Age artifact discovered on the continent.

The fluted sides and sharp serrated edges of the Clovis point gave hunters a lethal weapon that decimated herds of mammoth, giant armadillo and other megafauna.

For much of the 20th century, mainstream archaeologists held fast to a "Clovis First" theory: Big game hunters from Asia crossing the Bering land bridge, drifting down to the killing fields on the plains and in the arroyos, becoming the ancestors of the first tribes of America.

In the 1970s, one of the earliest challenges to the Clovis Firsters came from James Adovasio excavating below the 13,500-year level at Meadowcroft Rockshelter in Pennsylvania:

Adovasio’s meticulously detailed analysis dated occupation of the shelter to 16,000 years ago.

Initial scorn for the dissenters gave way to reluctant acceptance with the uncovering of no fewer than twenty-eight creditable pre-Clovis sites across North America, and in South America where Monte Verde in Chile was occupied between 14,220 to 13,980 years ago.

No finds were are dramatic than those at Topper in Allendale County, South Carolina. Archaeologist Al Goodyear and his team had already devoted fourteen years to probing an ancient chert quarry in the area, when flooding of the Savannah River forced them to the higher Topper ground in 1998.

In 2002, Topper artifacts returned a radiocarbon dating of 16,000-20,000 years ago. Two years later, Goodyear found stone age tools embedded in a white sand stone with a layer of charcoal from 50,000 years ago. While there are sceptics aplenty to chip away at Topper, Dr. Goodyear continues to dig deeper.

[Images: Clovis Point, courtesy National Park Service; Meadowcroft Rockshelter, Mark McConaughy; Meadowcroft Excavation Site, courtesy Heinz History Center; Topper artifacts, courtesy Topper Site Virtual Museum]