Clovis-Age Tools Found at Colorado Home

Landscapers working at a private home in Boulder, Colorado, have unearthed a cache of 13,000-year-old tools dating to the Clovis ice-age hunter-gatherers.

Scientists at the University of Colorado at Boulder confirmed the age of the 83 items discovered in the front yard of a suburban homeowner. Biochemical analysis of blood and proteins found on the tools revealed that the tools were used to butcher camels, horses, sheep and bears, providing previously unknown content about the diet of the Clovis people.

These tools present a surprising level of sophistication for the Clovis people, and were possibly intentionally buried for use at a later time. Named after their first discovery in Clovis, New Mexico, these people are believed to be the first inhabitants of the New World and ancestors of all the indigenous people of the Americas. This cache of tools is one of only a handful of Clovis-era artifacts found in North America.

These results were reported on February 26th by the Associated Press. The homeowner has plans to donate most of the items to museums and rebury a few of the artifacts where they were originally found.

Source: Yahoo!