Episode 3 Clovis Man: North America’s First Culture
Ancient Civilizations of North America
Dr Edwin Barnhart (2018)
Film Review
The first evidence of human habitation in North America was discovered in Fison, New Mexico in 1908. At least 10,000 years old, the site provides the first evidence of humans hunting (with darts) and butchering Bison antiquus. Archeologists refer to this period of pre-history as the Paleoindian or Lithic period.
In 1932, the first Clovis points (a type of projectile point) were discovered near Blackwater Draw, New Mexico, along with charred bones of Bison antiquus, camels, sabre tooth cats and mega fauna wolves in layers. Dating from 13,000 to 10,000 years ago, most Clovis points measured 1-6 inches long. All had a flute (indentation) on both sides where it attached to the dart.
Clovis man used atlatls or dart throwers to increase the velocity of their darts. The dart slipped from the atlatl as the hunter threw his arm forward. Clovis man mainly hunted mammoths and mastodons in coordinated groups.Clovis points, made by chipping churt (aka flint), obsidian or quartz, were difficult to make and required great skill. They have been found in roughly 1500 locations throughout North America, most dating from 13,300 and 12,700 years ago. Most sites are concentrated in the East/Central US, with the oldest in Teas and northern Mexico. There are a few Clovis sites in Venezuela, but most are north of Central America. Thus far, no Clovis site have been found in Alaska or Siberia.
Chipped Solutrian* knives (indicated by the absence of flutes) are similar but wider than Clovis points.
The turtle seems to have been the most common prey hunted by Clovis man, with only 14 sites associated with mammoth bones. Other tools found with Clovis points include skin scrapers, choppers, axes, knives, needles and dart shaft straighteners. They are made of bone, horn and antler, as well as stone.
About half of North American Clovis points were found at Gault, a huge (as large as six football fields) multigenerational campsite in Florence Texas. Located near a spring and naturally occurring chert, Gault shows clear evidence of a sedentary lifestyle linked to megafauna migration. Other Gault artifacts include scrapers, axes, carving and plant processing tools and stones incised with geometric shapes.
Clovis culture became extinct when the mammoth did, most likely from climate changed that transformed its grassland habitat into forest. Our most recent mammoth remains date from 1700 BC on an island off the coast of Siberia.
Human population increased as the grasslands receded. Other extinctions that occurred during this transition were those of North American camels, tiny horses, giant ground sloths and armadillos and the sabre tooth tiger.
After Clovis culture collapsed, its survivors created Folsom Culture 11,000 – 10,000 BP (Before Present). Folsom man was restricted to the Great Plans between Canada and Texas where the Bison antiquus roamed. Folsom points were shorter and thinner and their flute extended the entire length of the blade. Only about 2,000 have been found in a much more limited area.
Folsom man developed the new hunting technique known as bison jumps (still in use when Europeans arrived). In a bison jump, a group of hunters would create a bison stampede and drive them off a cliff.
As many as 100-300 animals have been found at the bottom of cliffs in Colorado, Wyoming, Nebraska and Oklahoma.
The main Folsom site (near Folsom, New Mexico) was a multigenerational camp where archeologists have found choppers and scrapers, as well as Folsom points and evidence of body painting with red hematite and ochre.
Folsom culture collapsed when Bison antiquus became extinct 10,000 years ago.
*See Earliest Migrations to North America
Film can be viewed free with a library card on Kanopy.
The Most Revolutionary Act 
You are forgetting the European Solutreans who were the actual first Americans to beat the Clovis people by about 1500 to 2000 years on this continent. There is a plethora of evidence but, it is politically incorrect to follow this archeological path.
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Barnhart discusses the Solutrean points in his second lecture: https://stuartbramhall.wordpress.com/2023/02/10/earliest-migrations-to-north-america/
As of 2018 when he made the series, there were no human remains associated with the Solutrean points (making it impossible to link Solutrean American haplotypes with European ones). Also there were no artifacts linking the Solutrean points with a sedentary lifestyle (this is Barnhart’s definition of culture). I have a special interest in the Solutrean controversy and would be interested whether any Solutrean human remains or artifacts have been discovered in the last 5 years.
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