More on Clovis Learning: Individual-level Processes Aggregate to Form Population-level Patterns

ABSTRACT

The Clovis techno-complex has figured prominently in American archaeology since the 1930s, when fluted stone weapon tips and other tools were found alongside the remains of late Pleistocene fauna in eastern New Mexico. Given the lack of fluted projectile points in the Old World, it appears certain that the Clovis techno-complex emerged in the New World, south of the Laurentide and Cordilleran ice sheets. The successful marriage of learning models grounded in evolutionary theory and modern analytical methods has yielded significant results in terms of what we know about the rapid spread of Clovis across North America. As more researchers become involved in applying learning models, however, there needs to be both consistency in how concepts and terms – selection and drift, for example – are used and clarity over how the results of small-scale processes, when taken in the aggregate, can create the population-level patterns seen in the archaeological record.

KEYWORDS:

• Clovis points
• drift
• evolution
• individual learning
• selection
• social learning
• utility

Acknowledgements

I thank Heather Smith and Jesse Tune for inviting me to participate in their excellent symposium at the 2018 Society for American Archaeology meeting. I also thank several colleagues, especially Loren Davis, for suggesting I write this piece; Briggs Buchanan, Metin Eren, and Matt Boulanger for helping me work through some of the points made here; and two reviewers for very helpful remarks for improving the discussion. Matt Boulanger created the two figures included here.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Michael J. O’Brien is provost and professor of history at Texas A&M University–San Antonio. His research interests include the application of evolutionary theory and methods to the understanding of human behavior, especially as it pertains to the early colonization of North America. Recent work includes three books published by MIT Press: The Acceleration of Culture Change (R. A. Bentley and M. J. O’Brien, 2017); Convergent Evolution in Stone-Tool Technology (M. J. O’Brien, B. Buchanan, and M. I. Eren, eds., 2018); and The Importance of Small Decisions (M. J. O’Brien, R. A. Bentley, and W. A. Brock, 2019).