New Research Shows Ancient Clovis Hunters Were “Megafaunal Specialists”

by Elim Eyobed, age 14

Imagine stalking mammoths across frozen tundras. This is how the Clovis people survived the Ice Age, hunting mammoths, bison, and other animals to thrive in a harsh, frozen world.

The Clovis people originated in Siberia and crossed the Bering Land Bridge to the Americas during the last Ice Age. Clovis is a term used to represent a whole culture known primarily for their stone tools, one of which was a weapon called the Clovis Point. This culture hunted large animals such as mammoths, but they also consumed other creatures such as bison and small animals. Research shows that they had an average of 12,800 calories per day, consisting of 21% bison and 79% mammoths and other small to medium animals.

Researchers from McMaster University in Canada and the University of Alaska Fairbanks have been trying to figure out who the Clovis people were and learn more about their culture to see how humans influenced the extinction of large mammals during the Ice Age. The researchers found that the tools they used had a large influence on their lives. Specifically, these tools determined their diet via limitations in the size, species, and quantity of the animals they could hunt based on their weapons.

Their hunting techniques have had a major impact on our world today. Not only did the Clovis people potentially influence mammoths' extinction, but research shows that these tools and methods allowed many of their descendants, North America's indigenous people, to hunt and defeat prey of any size for food and clothing.

[Sources: Associated Press; National Science Foundation; National Geographic]