Clovis artifacts are found across North America about 13,000 plus or minus 100 years ago. It's a remarkable cultural tradition.
Where did the Clovis people come from? Archeology textbooks say the first Americans crossed over a land bridge from Siberia as the melting glaciers presented an ice-free corridor. But there may have been alternate routes. Some think they came down the west coast of America and then slipped on into South America very early, perhaps using boats along the shoreline. Others who may have come in boats were the Solutrean people from France and Spain, who ventured west into the Atlantic hunting seals. Whatever their origin, there was a brief, golden age of Clovis lasting no more than 300 years. Then the Clovis culture vanished.
So what was the cause of this sudden disappearance of life? Some say it may have come from outer space. A pattern appears at almost all the Clovis sites. There is usually a layer with the extinct animals in like mammoths and mastodons. Artifacts from Clovis people were at the same level.
There are also layers marked with "ET markers" or extraterrestrial markers that had to do with, perhaps, a comet impact. Sometimes these are mixed in the sediment with the Clovis points.
Mainstream scientists currently are skeptical about the comet theory.
Clovis is a very exciting area of archeology. New discoveries come out of other former discoveries.
Standards
- 3.2.2.ER Identify and analyze the ways people interact with the physical environment in different regions of the state, the country, and the world.
- This indicator was developed to encourage inquiry into how cultural characteristics are determined by a broad range of factors and interactions specific to a place.
