linguistic:translation
Distribution and chronology

Some authors have suggested that the Clovis culture lasted for a relatively short period of a few centuries, with a 2020 study suggesting a temporal range, based on ten securely radiocarbon-dated Clovis sites, of 13,050 to 12,750 calibrated years BP, ending subsequent to the onset of the Younger Dryas, consistent with the results obtained in a 2007 study by the same authors. Other authors have argued that some sites extend the range of the Clovis culture back to 13,500 years BP, though the dating for these earlier sites is not secure. Some scholars have supported a long chronology for Clovis of around 1,500 years.

Historically, many authors argued for a "Clovis first" paradigm, where Clovis, which represents the earliest recognisable archaeological culture in North America, were suggested to represent the earliest inhabitants of the Americas south of the Laurentide Ice Sheet. However, since the beginning of the 21st century, this hypothesis has been abandoned by most researchers, as several widely accepted sites, notably Monte Verde II in Chile (c. 14,500 years BP) as well as Paisley Caves in Oregon (c. 14,200 years BP) and Cooper's Ferry in Idaho (c. 15,800 years BP) are suggested to be considerably older than the oldest Clovis sites. Historically, it was suggested that the ancestors of the people who produced the Clovis culture migrated into North America along the " ice-free corridor ", but many later scholars have suggested that a migration along the Pacific coast is more likely.

The Clovis culture is known from localities across North America, from southern Canada to northern Mexico and across the east and west of the continent. The area of its origin remains unclear, though the development of fluted Clovis points appears to have occurred in North America south of the Laurentide Ice Sheet and not in Beringia. The Clovis culture may have originated from the Dyuktai lithic style widespread in Beringia. While some authors have suggested that the Clovis culture resulted from diffusion of traditions through an already pre-existing Paleoindian population, others have asserted that the culture likely originated from the expansion of a single population. In Western North America, the Clovis culture was contemporaneous with and perhaps preceded by the Western Stemmed Tradition, which produced unfluted projectile points, with the Western Stemmed Tradition continuing in the region for several thousand years after the end of Clovis.

The end of the Clovis culture may have been driven by the decline of the megafauna that the Clovis hunted, as well as decreasing mobility, resulting in local differentiation of lithic and cultural traditions across North America. This is generally considered to be the result of normal cultural change through time. There is no evidence that the disappearance of the Clovis culture was the result of the onset of the Younger Dryas, or that there was a population decline of Paleoindians following the end of the Clovis culture.

The Clovis culture was succeeded by various regional point styles, such as the Folsom tradition in central North America, the Cumberland point in mid/southern North America, the Suwannee and Simpson points in the southeast, and the Gainey points in the northeast-Great Lakes region. The Clovis and Folsom traditions may have overlapped, perhaps for around 80–400 years.

A number of authors have suggested that the Clovis culture is ancestral to other fluted point-producing cultures in Central and South America, like the widespread Fishtail or Fell point style.