<P> The Archaic period in the Americas saw a changing environment featuring a warmer more arid climate and the disappearance of the last megafauna . The majority of population groups at this time were still highly mobile hunter - gatherers, but now individual groups started to focus on resources available to them locally . Thus with the passage of time there is a pattern of increasing regional generalization like the Southwest, Arctic, Poverty, Dalton and Plano traditions . These regional adaptations would become the norm, with reliance less on hunting and gathering, and a more mixed economy of small game, fish, seasonally wild vegetables and harvested plant foods . Many groups continued to hunt big game but their hunting traditions became more varied and meat procurement methods more sophisticated . The placement of artifacts and materials within an Archaic burial site indicated social differentiation based upon status in some groups . </P> <P> Paleo - Indians are generally classified by lithic reduction or lithic core "styles" and by regional adaptations . Lithic technology fluted spear points, like other spear points, are collectively called projectile points . The projectiles are constructed from chipped stones that have a long groove called a "flute". The spear points would typically be made by chipping a single flake from each side of the point . The point was then tied onto a spear of wood or bone . As the environment changed due to the ice age ending around 17--13Ka BP on short, and around 25--27Ka BP on the long, many animals migrated overland to take advantage of the new sources of food . Humans following these animals, such as bison, mammoth and mastodon, thus gained the name big - game hunters . Pacific coastal groups of the period would have relied on fishing as the prime source of sustenance . </P> <P> Archaeologists are piecing together evidence that the earliest human settlements in North America were thousands of years before the appearance of the current Paleo - Indian time frame (before the late glacial maximum 20,000 plus years ago). Evidence indicates that people were living as far east as northern Yukon, in the glacier - free zone called Beringia before 30,000 BCE (32,000 BP). Until recently, it was generally believed that the first Paleo - Indian people to arrive in North America belonged to the Clovis culture . This archaeological phase was named after the town of Clovis, New Mexico, where in 1936 unique Clovis points were found in situ at the site of Blackwater Draw, where they were directly associated with the bones of Pleistocene animals . </P> <P> Recent data from a series of archaeological sites throughout the Americas suggest that Clovis (thus the "Paleo - Indians") time range should be re-examined . In particular, sites located near Cactus Hill in Virginia, Meadowcroft Rockshelter in Pennsylvania, Monte Verde in Chile, Topper in South Carolina, and Quintana Roo in Mexico have generated early dates for wide - ranging Paleo - Indian occupation . Some sites significantly predate the migration time frame of ice - free corridors, thus suggesting that there were additional coastal migration routes available, traversed either on foot and / or in boats . Geological evidence suggests the Pacific coastal route was open for overland travel before 23,000 years ago and after 16,000 years ago . </P>

Point arrowheads were an important technological development for paleo-indians in the new world