To understand why the White Sands dates were so significant — why they were described in the press as potentially the most important archaeological discovery in a generation — requires understanding the intellectual framework they were disrupting.

The conventional model for the peopling of the Americas had, for most of the twentieth century, centered on what is called the Clovis-first hypothesis.

The Clovis culture is named after a site near Clovis, New Mexico, where distinctive fluted stone spear points were first identified in the 1930s in association with the bones of extinct Ice Age animals.

Clovis points — large, beautifully made, with characteristic channels flaked into both faces of the point — have been found at sites across North America.

They represent the most widespread and recognizable early stone tool technology in the New World.

The oldest well-dated Clovis sites were approximately 13,000 years old.