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13000–8000 BCE

Period · North America — Eastern Woodlands

Paleoindian

13000–8000 BCE

The Paleoindian period covers the first well-documented peopling of North America at the end of the Pleistocene, from Clovis through Folsom to the unfluted Plano complexes. Sites are kill sites, camps and caches, and the toolkit is dominated by lanceolate points and blades in high-quality stone. The period ends as megafauna vanish and notched Archaic points appear.

Dates13000–8000 BCE
RegionNorth America — Eastern Woodlands
PeriodO definition10000–8000 BCE — Digital Index of North American Archaeology (DINAA) (2012)· PeriodO — Periods, Organized

Cultures

Sites

Typical types

Elsewhere

Cite this article

Stratum Study. "Paleoindian" (Period). Stratum Study pack 2026.09, as of 2026-09-21. https://stratum.black/study/periods/paleoindian. Accessed 2026-09-21.

BibTeX · CSL-JSON

@misc{stratum-paleoindian,
  title        = {Paleoindian},
  author       = {{Stratum Study}},
  howpublished = {\url{https://stratum.black/study/periods/paleoindian}},
  year         = {2026},
  note         = {Period article, Stratum Study pack 2026.09, as of 2026-09-21; sources: stratum, periodo. Accessed 2026-09-21.}
}

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Sources for this article: Stratum editorial (Stratum editorial);PeriodO — Periods, Organized (CC0). As of 2026-09-21; Study pack 2026.09. Data reproduced under the licences shown; text in Stratum's own words unless a section names its source.

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