New World palaeoecology at the Last Glacial Maximum and the implications for New World prehistory

The discovery and acceptance of Clovis (approximately 10800-11 200 BP) in North America as cultural groups associated with hunting of mammoth and extinct forms of bison occurred with little fanfare or controversy and as something of an anticlimax to the earlier discovery and acceptance of Folsom (approximately 10100-10800 BP) (dates are from V. Haynes 1987 , p. 84). This is because the evidence for Clovis was straightforward and all investigators properly trained in scientific procedures could find no valid grounds for refuting the evidence. The fact that Clovis did represent hunters of extinct fauna (mammoths) in both Old and New Worlds and the similarity between certain bone and ivory artefacts (see Haynes 1970 ) found in Clovis sites and Upper Palaeolithic sites in the Old World generated thinking that Clovis was a manifestation somehow related to the Old World Upper Palaeolithic, that had migrated across the Bering Strait and eventually spread throughout the New World. The question did arise, however, as to whether Clovis was derived from groups that had migrated earlier to the New World (e.g. Wormington 1962 , Bryan 1965 , Miiller-Beck 1966) or whether Clovis represented a more recent migration in late glacial times (see Green 1963 , Haynes 1964 ).