Clovis Hunting Strategies

The Clovis image of a highly mobile big-game hunter has come under fire recently. Accusations range from Clovis hunting behaviors provide a meduim for perpetuating androcentric bias to theoretical concerns whether big-game hunting would have been economically feasible for Clovis. So were the Clovis big-game hunters or general foragers? The generalists, as I'll call the general forager theorists, claim that although Clovis killed large game they were mainly dependent on small prey and plants for subsistence. Since most Clovis sites contain megafaunal remains, the generalists suggest that when more "campsites" are discovered it will be seen that Clovis had a wide diet-breadth. The generalists also argue that the evidence of Clovis is biased since megafaunal remains are more archaeologically visible than smaller prey. Some theoretical concerns are that big-game hunting is ethnographically rare and the hug diversity of North American fauna and flora would favor a general foraging strategy. The generalists seem to have forgotten about the optimal foraging theory. If high ranked prey are available and it is feasible to kill them then that prey will be the prey of choice. Clovis had low population densities and the megafauna were abundant in the Pleistocene. So it makes sense for them to be big game specialists. A study of 33 Clovis sites was conducted. If the Clovis were general foragers then there would be a positive correlation between prey densities and their presence in the archaeological records of Clovis sites. If Clovis were big game specialists then there would be a negative correlation. For example mammoths do not have high densities compared to say rabbits. So a general foraging site would have much less mammoth remains than rabbit remains. And the opposite would be true of a big game specialist site. So out of the 33 sites mammoth would only be at 3.3 of the sites according to the correlation between prey assemblages and natural abundance. The evidence however shows mammoth/mastodon at 79% of sites (22.7 more than should occur for general foraging) and rodents/insectivores are at 19 less sites than they should be if Clovis were general foragers. The largest and least diverse and least abundant taxa are present at Clovis sites. Also the Clovis tool kits with large bifacial projectile points are perfect for bringing down large prey.

The conclusion is that Clovis were big game specialists and the new ideas of them as general foragers is absurd. If they were general foragers then Clovis would have survived the Younger Dryas and megafaunal extinctions.

Surovell TA. CLOVIS HUNTING STRATEGIES, OR HOW TO MAKE OUT ON PLENTIFUL RESOURCES. American Antiquity. 68(2), 2003, 333-352