Envisioning a Western Clovis Ritual Complex

ABSTRACT

It is becoming increasingly apparent that the initial migrants into the Americas arrived via the Pacific coastal route prior to the inception of the Clovis complex. It further appears that these initial immigrants had non-Clovis technology and a generalized (or broad spectrum) economy with little use of the megafauna in their midst. Once developed, Clovis, marked by a different lithic technology, quickly spread over most of the Americas as far south as Panama, and is associated with the exploitation of proboscideans. This begs the question of why these animals were not exploited by the apparently earlier people. It is speculated herein that the seemingly abrupt appearance of Clovis, its focus on proboscideans, and its sudden demise reflects the appearance of a technologic and organizational system focused on the ritual exploitation of mammoths operating within preexisting Paleoindian societies, herein called the Western Clovis Ritual Complex.

KEYWORDS:

• Pre-Clovis
• Western Clovis
• Clovis ritual
• proboscideans
• Western Stemmed

Acknowledgements

I greatly appreciate the comments and suggestions of Charlotte Beck, Ted Goebel, Ed Knell, Lee Lyman, Katelyn N. McDonough, Mike Moratto, Ken Reid, Barb Roth, and the anonymous reviewers for PaleoAmerica. I also thank the editors for their patience in the completion of this paper. However, everyone has firmly insisted that they take no credit for the ideas expressed in this paper. Luke Wisner produced the figures.

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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

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Mark Q. Sutton

Mark Q. Sutton is Professor Emeritus at California State University, Bakersfield. He earned his PhD in Anthropology at University of California Riverside in 1987 and subsequently served as Professor of anthropology and Director of the Center for Archaeological Research at CSU-Bakersfield. Sutton's research has focused on the archaeology of hunter-gatherers in California and the Great Basin. Among his books are Archaeological Laboratory Methods: An Introduction (2019, with Brooke Arkush), Paleonutrition (2010, with K. Sobolik and J. Gardner), A Prehistory of North America (2011), Introduction to Cultural Ecology (2014, with E. Anderson), An Introduction to Native North America (2021), and Bioarchaeology (2021).