Clovis Pattern

The Clovis pattern represents the earliest universally accepted cultural pattern in North America, generally dated to around 11,500 B.C. One hypothesis is that the Clovis people were the first colonizers of the continent after the glaciers receded, although other researchers have argued for the presence of earlier but generally less distinctive cultural remains.

The archaeological hallmarks of the Clovis pattern are large, basally fluted projectile points that have been found widely throughout the continent but which were apparently only manufactured during a short period of no more than a few centuries. Clovis points are comparatively well represented in the Mojave Desert and the Great Basin, and several specimens have recently been found in Baja California, but they seem to be notably scarce in southernmost California. Three fluted points have been recorded from San Diego County.

Emma Lou Davis and Richard Shutler, Jr. (1969) reported on a fluted quartz crystal point in the collections of the San Diego Museum of Man. The specimen had come from a donor who said that it had been found in “a pass in Cuyamaca Park” in southeastern San Diego County (Davis and Shutler 1969:157). “It is unusually long–13.9 cm.–and is made of flawless crystal which has been heat treated to relieve internal strains. On one side there is a flute 2 cm. in length; on the opposite face are two flutes 2.5 cm. long. The point was shaped, bifacially by percussion removal of very wide, thin flakes–probably by clipping blows against a padded thigh. The tool was then held free in the artisan’s hand, basal platforms were prepared and channel flakes were detached from the flutes by accurate percussion. To finish the piece, the edges were pressure flaked to an even contour and then the base and 25% of the proximal segment of each edge were ground smooth” (Davis and Shutler 1969:158).

The second fluted point was reported by George E. Kline and Victoria L. Kline (2007) from excavations at site SDI-2506 in Lost Valley, in northeastern San Diego County. This specimen was made from obsidian that has been chemically sourced to Lookout Mountain at the Casa Diablo obsidian source in Mono County, about 500 kilometers north of where the point was ultimately found. It is relatively short, wide, and thick, and its base is anomalously slightly convex, in contrast to the concave form of most Clovis bases. “Fluting is restricted to only one face, and visual evidence of basal grinding or polishing is absent to the naked eye….However, under high magnification, two possible points of grinding or smoothing for hafting cordage contact may be seen on the proximal edges…the fluting is somewhat less well defined than many” (Kline and Kline 2007:56).

The presence of a fluted point in the Ocotillo Wells area of northeastern San Diego County has also been reported on the basis of a personal communication from Fritz Riddell (Rondeau et al. 2007).

PROSPECTS

Focused investigations may be able to identify additional fluted points in San Diego County. To help explain their apparent scarcity, chronological studies may be able to identify the presence of contemporaneous non-Clovis cultural patterns in the region. Chemical methods, such as x-ray fluorescence analysis, may be able to determine the local or non-local origins of individual fluted specimens. Technological studies may be able to evaluate the uniformity or variability in the techniques employed to produce fluted points and in their uses. Contextual studies may be able to evaluate whether individual specimens were deposited contemporaneously with their use, or whether they were heirlooms or curiosities deposited at substantially later periods.