Crossroads, p. 2
They probably knew how to build hide-covered boats. They hunted big game with bone or stone tipped spears which they hurled, with tremendous force, with the spear thrower (or "atl-atl"), and they used throwing sticks or "non-returning boomerangs" for small game.
(Atl-atl was the main weapon of American
Indians from 9,500 B.C. to A.D. 500. It is simply a straight piece of wood
about 18 inches long with a slight hook on the end. The atl-atl dart, in
size between a small spear and a large arrow, is held on top of the atl-atl,
resting against the hook. It is thrown overhead and can easily travel a
hundred yards because of the extra leverage the atl-atl provides.)
They were expert flint knappers and their finely made and very distinctive
"fluted " spear points are the best clues to identifying their
camp sites, their migration routes, and the places they killed and butchered
animals. Archeologists call these spear points "Clovis points"
after the site near Clovis, New Mexico, where they were first found with
the bones of extinct Ice Age animals.
(Clovis Point discoveries
prove that the Paleo Indians lived in Arkansas, but the finds are few and
far between and no substantial Paleo Indian campsites have been found.)
They were accompanied by dogs, descended from wolves, that earned their keep as hunters and trackers, as pack animals, as sentinels, and perhaps as pets. The skeleton of one of these early dogs has been found near an 11,580 year old hearth in Jaguar Cave in Idaho.
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