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By the time of European settlement, much of North America was littered with stone projectile points of various sizes.
This modern reproduction of a traditional arrow-head (at left) is a typical example. It is made of chipped flint, recouched to provide a sharp point and a cutting edge, and is provided with a pair of notches so that it can be tied ("hafted") to the end of an arrow. (Even more arrows simply had hardened wooden points, but of course far fewer of these survived.)
Projectile points have been found in a wide range of shapes and sizes —what was needed to kill a bird with an arrow was different from what was needed to kill a bison with a spear— and they were made of a range of kinds of stone, depending on what was locally available. Archaeologists have created typologies based on both form and function to help in reconstructing history of human settlements in particular regions.
It often happens in archaeology that a particular type of artifact becomes the diagnostic sign for a whole assemblage, and can give its name to whole cultural traditions and groups of people. In the archaeology of early North America, this is the case for two distinctive styles of very early spear points, called Clovis and Folsom, and the use of these points dominates what we know today about the "Clovis People" and the "Folsom People."
Certain characteristics are common to both of these point types:
This page reviews those two early artifact types and a couple of others. Depending on the resolution of your screen, the pictures should be approximately life-size.
Clovis points (at right) are the oldest spear points widely found in North America, occurring over a vast area covering nearly all of what is today the United States and Mexico. Similar, probably related, points have also been found in Alaska. The broad distribution suggests that there was no "Clovis" ethnic group as such, but simply a tool type (or tool kit) that was broadly shared across many populations.
Clovis points date to the very end of the Pleisocene, about 9,000 to 9,500 BC or so and are associated especially with bones of mammoths (specifically Mammuthus columbi), although they seem also to have been used to hunt bison and other animals.
There are no known northeast Asian analogs to the Clovis Point, which seems to have been invented in the Americas. (Ambiguous evidence has implied to some specialists the possibility of proto-Clovis technology coming from Eruope about 13,000 BC, but most find this still unconvincing.)
Folsom points (at left) are slightly later —you can think of them as coming in alphabetical order— dating from about 8,800 to 8,200 BC. They also have a more restricted, although still very wide, distribution, covering the Rocky Mountains and the Great Plains, essentially from slightly north of Montana and North Dakota to slightly south of New Mexico and Texas.
Folsom points seem to be specialized to bison hunting (specifically the now extinct Bison antiquus). Mammoths, found with Clovis points, had disappeared by Folsom times, and bison seem to have become overwhelmingly the large prey of choice. Of course small animals like rabbits and snakes must have been hunted as well.
The most distinctive feature in the appearance of a Folsom point is the huge flute produced by knocking a chip from the center of each side. Clovis points were slighted fluted, but Folsom points were heavily fluted.
Many other Paleoindian spear point types are also identified from Western North America, although they are less well known than Clovis and Folsom, mostly because they are later and have not been associated with the elusive quest for the earliest settlers.
Two examples are Plainview and Eden points.
Plainview points (right) were made sometime between 8,600 and 7,600 BC and, like Folsom points, seem to have been specialized to bison. In that respect we can think of them as successors to the Folsom tool tradition. So far they seem to occur only in the southern areas of the Folsom distribution area, however: largely in Texas, Oklahoma, and New Mexico.
Physically Plainview Points look similar to Folsom points, but with a much reduced flute or none at all. (Why? If bison hunting spears worked better with fluted points, why did the flutes vanish? If bison hunting spears worked better without the flutes, why were Folsom points so heavily fluted? Was their a technological innovation in hafting that changed things?)
Eden points (left) date from between 7,800 and 6,500 BC or so. They are distinctive in being extremely long in comparison with their width, although as you can see from the examples here, that was also often true of Clovis points. Eden points are found over much of the same area as Folsom points. Like Folsom points, they have been associated with bison bones.
Other points associated with Paleoindian groups in North America include Scottsbluff points (sometimes lumped with Eden points into the "Cody Complex," which also includes some other, less well known point types).
Picture Credits The arrowhead shown at the top of the page was made by an anonymous Cherokee craftsman for sale to tourists. Other photos on this page are of plastic casts available from the "In Hand Museum" collection of Albuquerque. The originals of these particular examples are in the Maxwell Museum of Anthropology at the University of New Mexico.