What The Debate Has Become — And Where Buhl Fits

The Clovis First paradigm, which was still influential when the Buhl burial was discovered in 1989, has been substantially revised.

It is not precisely dead — there are still researchers who question the reliability of specific pre-Clovis dates and who maintain that the Clovis evidence is more robust than the alternatives — but the consensus has shifted significantly toward accepting pre-Clovis occupation of the Americas.

Cooper’s Ferry in Idaho, with its well-dated pre-Clovis stemmed point assemblage from before 15,000 calibrated years ago, is perhaps the most significant recent addition to the western North American early occupation record.