Paleo-Indians is a term that refers to the earliest well-known human inhabitants of the Americas who lived from about 13,500 to 8,000 years ago. The earliest Paleo-Indian culture is known as Clovis, after a site near the town of Clovis, New Mexico, where remains of this prehistoric culture were found. Other Paleo-Indian cultures followed, and some may have existed alongside the Clovis culture. Prehistorians disagree about when the first people migrated to the Americas. A few archaeological sites in the Americas show that humans arrived there well before the Clovis people. Experts refer to such early Native American cultures as pre-Clovis and do not consider them Paleo-Indians. See Monte Verde site.
Paleo-Indians lived during the last part of the ice ages of the Pleistocene Epoch and the beginning of the current time, the Holocene Epoch. During the Pleistocene, they hunted now-extinct giant animals, called megafauna, that included mammoths, mastodons, ground sloths, relatives of modern camels, and giant bison. Hunters launched stone-tipped spears using a device called an atlatl << AHT laht uhl >>, a shaft with a spur at one end to hold the butt of the spear. This device increased the range and force of their spears. Paleo-Indians also hunted smaller animals, including various reptiles, birds, and fish, and gathered wild plants. These peoples lived in small, highly mobile groups with no permanent settlements.
Paleo-Indian cultures gradually faded by about 8,000 years ago, during what archaeologists call the Archaic Period. The Archaic Period was characterized by increasing dependence on plant resources and a wider variety of other resources. The transition was also marked by a change in hunting technology. Most Paleo-Indian hunters manufactured spear points that have a long flake removed down the center of one or both faces. This allowed the point to be hafted (fixed to a wooden shaft). The groove created by removing the flake is called a flute, and this type of stone point is called a fluted point. Later Archaic hunters in most parts of the Americas did not make fluted points. They made spear points with distinct corner or side notches for hafting.
See also Folsom point; Indigenous peoples of the Americas (The first Americans).
