Life and Death of a Clovis Point
Mar 10, 2025
By: Greg Schmalzel
Every stone tool follows a journey—born from nature, shaped by human hands, used, discarded, and sometimes rediscovered long after its maker is gone. A single Clovis point can tell us more than just how it was made—it holds clues to the lives of the people who crafted it, the landscapes they moved through, and the world they left behind.
It can even give us clues as to what it’s been through since its divorce from its maker.
Thousands of years ago, someone shaped this stone into the perfect tool for its time. With practiced hands, they struck the raw material, flaking off slivers until a razor-sharp point emerged. Maybe it brings down a mammoth. Maybe it shatters on impact. Perhaps it's lost, sinking into the mud, and forgotten for millennia. But its story isn’t over.
This point was found in the Northeastern United States, where the Clovis culture once thrived. In this video, we’ll reconstruct the life history of this tool and use it as a window into the world of these people.
This is the life and death of a Clovis point.
Watch the full YouTube video HERE.
The Discovery
Boldurian, A. 2006. “Great Egg Harbor Clovis Point.” North American Archaeologist 27(3):245-270.
In June 1966, Hurricane Alma tore through the Atlantic, reshaping coastlines and stirring up ancient sediments. In the aftermath, William Freeland was clamming near Drag Island, New Jersey, when he uncovered an unusual artifact—a Clovis point.
Clovis points, dating to around 13,000 years ago, are among the earliest stone tools in the Americas. This particular point, found in the Great Egg Harbor lagoon, hinted at now-submerged prehistoric sites along the coast. Documented by archaeologist Anthony Boldurian, it offers a rare glimpse into early human presence in the region. But to truly understand it, we must first examine the stone from which it was made.
The Birth of a Tool
The story of this Clovis point begins not with human hands but deep in Earth's geological history. Not all rocks are created equal—some are better suited for toolmaking due to their structure, composition, and fracture properties. Ancient toolmakers learned through experience to recognize the best materials for their craft, favoring cryptocrystalline stones, which fracture in a predictable, controlled manner.
Among the most prized were chert, flint, and jasper—silica-based rocks that formed in marine environments. Obsidian, a volcanic glass, provided razor-sharp edges, while quartzite and argillite were valued for durability. Clovis knappers specifically sought out high-quality chert due to its ability to hold an edge while resisting shattering.
The Drag Island Clovis point was made from Helderberg Chert, part of the Devonian-aged Helderberg Group, dating back over 400 million years. This chert formed in an ancient marine ecosystem filled with brachiopods, crinoids, and coral, long before humans ever existed. When a Clovis hunter came across this jet-black stone, they recognized its potential, just as their ancestors had for generations.
Quarrying and Knapping
To extract chert, prehistoric people used hammerstones, wedges, and wooden pry bars to break apart bedrock or dislodge nodules. Evidence of their quarrying remains in the form of shallow pits, discarded flakes, and unfinished tools. Once the raw material was acquired, the transformation into a Clovis point began.
The first step was reduction, breaking the stone into a manageable size with a hammerstone. This initial shaping created a preform—a roughly shaped blank. Next, the knapper switched to pressure flaking, using an antler or bone tool to carefully remove small flakes, refining the edges and thinning the point.
The final and most delicate step was fluting—a hallmark of Clovis technology. The knapper struck the base with precision, removing a long, central flake. If successful, this left a smooth groove that made the point lighter and easier to haft onto a spear. However, fluting was risky—one mistake could shatter the point, wasting hours of work.
After testing the sharpness, the Clovis hunter had in their hands not just a tool, but a product of both human ingenuity and ancient geology—an artifact shaped by deep time and skilled craftsmanship.
The Life of a Clovis Point
What was this ancient tool used for? To understand, we must look at the world of its maker.
Around 13,000 years ago, North America was emerging from the Ice Age. The Pleistocene was ending, but the eastern U.S. remained much colder than today. Glaciers had retreated to upstate New York, and sea levels were far lower—New Jersey’s landmass was nearly twice its current size. Drag Island likely didn’t exist yet, instead sitting inland near an ancient river. The landscape was dominated by taiga forests and tundra, home to caribou, musk ox, mammoths, bison, and mastodons.
Clovis hunters may have pursued these megafauna using fluted points hafted onto spears—a debated topic in archaeology. While Clovis kill sites exist, they are rare, and some argue the points weren’t effective for piercing thick hides. Others believe the correlation between Clovis and megafaunal extinctions suggests active hunting.
The Drag Island Point, however, likely wasn’t used for hunting. Its edges show wear consistent with cutting or butchering rather than impact damage. Similar tools at Ohio’s Welling Site were used for hide scraping, meat processing, and woodworking.
Rather than being part of a dramatic mammoth hunt, this point was likely a tool of daily survival—carried, used, and relied upon until it was finally lost to time.
A Clovis Point's Afterlife
Many Clovis points never saw use, discarded as failed preforms. Ours, however, was fully functional—likely used for food processing, woodworking, or hide preparation before being lost or abandoned. Why would a hunter-gatherer discard a perfectly good tool? Was it replaced? Simply misplaced? We may never know.
What we do know is that it didn’t stay put. Its waterworn surface indicates it was carried by moving water, likely from a river terrace upstream before settling near Drag Island. Rising sea levels and shifting landscapes over millennia further transported and buried it beneath lagoon sediment. Ironically, the most significant damage wasn’t from ancient use but from the clamming tool that scooped it up.
This artifact doesn’t tell a dramatic tale of a mammoth hunt—it speaks to the everyday life of its maker: sourcing stone, shaping it, using it, then moving on. It also hints at the vast, untapped potential of coastal and marine archaeology. As more submerged sites await discovery, finds like the Drag Island point remind us—they’re out there, waiting to be found.
For more about the Clovis Culture, watch this Documentary!
Sources:
[1] Boldurian, A. 2006. “Great Egg Harbor Clovis Point.” North American Archaeologist 27(3):245-270.
[2] Suga, E., et al. 2023. “Explaining the Increase in “High-quality Chert” in the Early Upper Paleolithic Artifacts in Southern Jordan: Quantitative Examination of Chert Mechanical Properties and Fracture Predictability.” J Paleo Arch 6, 35.
[3] Donald R. Prothero and Lucianne Lavin. 1990. “Chert petrography and its potential as an analytical tool in archaeology.” Archaeological Geology of North America (4).
[4] Fritz, B. 2021. “Models for prehistoric lithic quarry development.” North American Archaeologist 42(3):243-285.
[5] Miller, G., et al. 2018. “Hunter-gatherer gatherings: stone-tool microwear from the Welling Site (33-Co-2), Ohio, U.S.A. supports Clovis use of outcrop-related base camps during the Pleistocene Peopling of the Americas.” World Archaeology 51(1):47–75.
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