#clovis people

Ancient North Americans hunted with spear points crafted to absorb shock.

Clovis people, who crossed a land bridge from Asia to North America around 13,500 years ago, fashioned stone weapons that slightly crumpled at the base rather than breaking at the tip when thrust into prey, say civil engineer Kaitlyn Thomas of Southern Methodist University in Dallas and colleagues. The Clovis crumple rested on a toolmaking technique called fluting, in which a thin groove was chipped off both sides of a stone point’s base, the researchers report in the May Journal of Archaeological Science.

No one knows for certain why the Clovis people and iconic beasts — mastodon, mammoth and saber-toothed tiger – living some 12,800 years ago suddenly disappeared. However, a discovery of widespread platinum at archaeological sites across the United States by three University of South Carolina archaeologists has provided an important clue in solving this enduring mystery.

The research findings are outlined in a new study published in Scientific Reports. The study, authored by 10 researchers, builds on similar findings of platinum – an element associated with cosmic objects like asteroids or comets – found by Harvard University researchers in an ice-core from Greenland in 2013.

The earliest people to walk across North America were master craftsmen. Living more than thirteen thousand years ago during the late Pleistocene epoch, these hunter gatherers needed weapons that were reliable, sharp, and deadly. Hunting immense beasts like woolly mammoths and mastodons was not a task for the poorly equipped. Survival depended entirely on the quality of the tools they carried.…

Look at them! They’re stunning!