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Classification

Paleo-Indians are generally classified by lithic reduction or lithic core "styles" and by regional adaptations. Lithic technology fluted spear points, like other spear points, are collectively called projectile points. The projectiles are constructed from chipped stones that have a long groove called a "flute". The spear points would typically be made by chipping a single flake from each side of the point. The point was then tied onto a spear of wood or bone. As the environment changed with the ice age ending around 17–13 Ka BP on short, and around 25–27 Ka BP on the long, many animals migrated overland to take advantage of the new sources of food. Humans following these animals, such as bison, mammoth and mastodon, thus gained the name big-game hunters. Pacific coastal groups of the period would have relied on fishing as the prime source of sustenance.

Archaeologists are piecing together evidence that the earliest human settlements in North America were thousands of years before the appearance of the current Paleo-Indian time frame (before the late glacial maximum 20,000-plus years ago). Evidence indicates that people were living as far east as Beringia before 30,000 BCE (32,000 BP). Until recently, it was generally believed that the first Paleo-Indian people to arrive in North America belonged to the Clovis culture. This archaeological phase was named after the city of Clovis, New Mexico, where in 1936 unique Clovis points were found in situ at the site of Blackwater Draw, where they were directly associated with the bones of Pleistocene animals.

Recent data from a series of archaeological sites throughout the Americas suggest that Clovis (thus the "Paleo-Indians") time range should be re-examined. In particular, sites such as Cooper's Ferry in Idaho, Cactus Hill in Virginia, Meadowcroft Rockshelter in Pennsylvania, Bear Spirit Mountain in West Virginia, Catamarca and Salta in Argentina, Pilauco and Monte Verde in Chile, Topper in South Carolina, and Quintana Roo in Mexico have generated early dates for wide-ranging Paleo-Indian occupation. Some sites significantly predate the migration time frame of ice-free corridors, thus suggesting that there were additional coastal migration routes available, traversed either on foot and/or in boats. Geological evidence suggests the Pacific coastal route was open for overland travel before 23,000 years ago and after 16,000 years ago.