Definition: Pre-Clovis culture refers to one of the defining debates in American prehistory is when did people get arrive? At present, the first absolutely agreed-upon culture in the Americas is a Paleoindian culture called Clovis, after the type site discovered in New Mexico in the 1920s.
However, in many places, including North American sites like Cactus Hill and Meadowcroft Rockshelter, and South American sites such as Monte Verde, there appears to be fairly reliable (if still somewhat controversial) evidence for people in the Americas before Clovis.
Since archaeologists can't even agree that there were humans in the Americas before Clovis, the term 'PreClovis' is used to mean those sites predating Clovis. See Tony Baker's Clovis First/Preclovis Revisited for a discussion of what PreClovis artifacts might look like.
Chances are, that who ever preclovis people were, they were certainly not organized in anyway, but may have led an Archaic-like lifestyle, hunting, gathering and fishing. Dates for PreClovis run from the absolutely crazy of 50,000 or greater years ago, to the fairly reasonable of 15,000 years ago.
PreClovis Sites
All of these sites have been characterized as having preclovis components, although some are more accepted than others.
Monte Verde, Meadowcroft Rockshelter, Cactus Hill, Paisley Caves, Manis Mastodon, Arlington Springs, Daisy Cave, Guitarrero Cave, Tlapacoya, Pedra Furada, Topper, Debra L. Friedkin
Sources
A Preclovis/Clovis Bibliography has been assembled for this project, and a collection of site descriptions for PreClovis sites is also available.
This glossary entry is part of the Dictionary of Archaeology. Any mistakes are the responsibility of Kris Hirst.
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