Crossroads, p. 4
Getting from there to the rest of North America was much more difficult because between 13,000 and 20,000 years ago the way south was blocked by ice caps that covered all of Canada and most of the northern quarter of the United States. But when the glaciers began to melt, 12,000 to 13,000 years ago, two things happened that pratically forced the Paleo Indians to move to North America. First, as all that ice melted the sea level rose again, slowly, and Beringia was submerged, causing people and animals to move east, into the Americas, or west, back to Asia. Second, long before the ice caps melted completely a corridor opened up between the glaciers that covered the Rocky Mountains and the great continental glaciers to the east. It led from the vicinity of Great Bear Lake in Alaska southeast through parts the Northwest territory, then through Alberta and Saskatchwan to North Dakota and Minnesota, where it exited south of the ice.
(The Paleo Indians
were exceptionally good at "flint knapping," the art of
making spear points and other tools by chipping or flaking the stone. Some
archeologists have specialized in the study of stone tools and have learned
to reproduce them. A Paleo indian knife or spear point was made by roughing
out the tool, using a piecof antler as a hammer to remove large flakes.
This is called the percussion technique).
(The tool was finished
by using a stone hammer, or a piece of antler, to remove small flakes, either
by striking it lightly or by applying slight pressure to the edges. This
is called the pressure technique).
The Paleo Indians moved through this corridor and spread over all of North and South America, preying on the vast game herds they found everywhere. It was a hunter's paradise. The animals must have been unbelievably easy to kill because they had no fear of humans, having never seen them before. The Paleo Indians moved from Alaska to the Gulf of Mexico within 500 years. Within 900 years there were Paleo Indians at the southern tip of South America.
Occasional finds of Clovis points prove that the Paleo Indians lived in Arkansas, but they are few and far between and no substantial Paleo Indian campsites have been found. This suggests that the population of "Clovis" people in Arkansas was very small, perhaps no more than two or three bands of 30 to 50 people each that moved about with the game, never camping long in one place. Arkansas was cold then, with a climate like northern Michigan or Maine. There were spruce forests in the Mississippi Valley; spruce and pine in the Ozarks and Ouachitas; and oak, hickory and pine in southwest Arkansas.
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