The Clovis Phenomenon, The first Americans, and the View from the Patagonia Region

MIOTTI LAURA

New Perspectives on the First Americans

Texas A&M University, Center for the Study of the First Americans

Lugar: Texas; Año: 2004; p. 31 - 36

The archaeological sites of Patagonia have been considered as good evidence for First Americans, related by some authors (e.g., Morrow and Morrow 1999) to Clovis peoples in the North.  But what is Clovis? Does Clovis represent a single and monolithic cultural group of conquerors of the last virginal continent?  Was Clovis a pan-continental, widespread population movement?  An affirmative reply would assume that similar technological attributes or artifacts dispersed throughout both Americas imply that there were similarities in ?ethnic identity.?  However, the archaeological evidence from the Southern Cone of South America suggests that the ?blitzkrieg? model of colonization from North to South is insufficient for explaining the early archaeological variability in South America.             This paper will summarize archaeological data in southern lowland South America, focussing upon the Central Plateau of Patagonia, for the interval of colonization between 13,000 and 11,000 RCYBP. Data on the paleoenvironments, the archaeological evidence, and the faunal remains from Patagonia allow inference of the regional patterns of subsistence, use of space, and mobility of the first settlers.  It is now clear that their technology and lifestyle were very different from the technology and patterns of the use of space characteristic of Clovis peoples.