One of the most striking aspects of the Clovis culture in the archaeological record is not its emergence but its ending.

Clovis technology appears in the record approximately 13,000 to 14,000 years ago and disappears — or more accurately, transforms — approximately 13,000 years ago, after a period of perhaps 500 to 1,000 years during which it was the dominant stone tool technology across much of North America.

What happened to Clovis?

The most commonly accepted explanation is ecological.

The end of the Clovis period coincides with the final extinction of the Pleistocene megafauna — mammoths, mastodons, horses, camels, and other large animals that had been central to the Clovis subsistence strategy.