The Clovis Lithic Technology at El Fin del Mundo: Early Paleoindian Mobility and Land Use Patterns in North-Central Sonora, Mexico

Summary

Clovis populations are thought to have been wide ranging, highly mobile foragers, as reflected in stone tool raw material procurement patterns and technological features of associated lithic assemblages. Intense utilization of high quality non-local cryptocrystalline raw materials, heavy stone tool refurbishing and repair strategies, and a lithic industry based on bifacial reduction are main features of the Clovis lithic technological organization suggestive of high mobility. In north-central Sonora, Mexico, non-cryptocrystalline stone raw materials dominate the Clovis point assemblage, and extensive sources of igneous rocks were intensively exploited by Clovis flintknappers, which has been interpreted as evidence of less mobile, place oriented groups. At El Fin del Mundo, a multicomponent Clovis site located in north-central Sonora, local sources of rhyolite were largely exploited, and more than half of the Clovis stone tools were made on locally available raw materials. However, the analysis of the overall lithic technological organization at the site indicates that the stone tool assemblage is consistent with the idea of Clovis groups as wide ranging and highly mobile. Furthermore, the Clovis component from El Fin del Mundo is comparable to those from the San Pedro River Valley, which have been interpreted as resulting from highly mobile strategies.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 17356