The Clovis culture
Distinctive fluted spear points spread across North America within a few centuries.
- When
- —
- Duration
- 400 years
- Known to
- ± 200 years
- Era
- Late Pleistocene, Quaternary
From about 13,100 years ago, a technologically uniform toolkit centred on the fluted Clovis point appears across most of North America in a remarkably short span. The flute — a channel struck from the base to aid hafting — is technically demanding and found nowhere else. Clovis was long taken as the founding population of the Americas; it is now understood as one culture among several, and later than the earliest arrivals, but its spread remains extraordinarily rapid.