Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Of or relating to prehistoric human culture in the Western Hemisphere from the earliest habitation to around 5,000 BC. Paleo-Indian cultures are distinguished especially by the various projectile points they produced.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a member of the Paleo-American peoples who were the earliest human inhabitants of North America and South America during the late Pleistocene epoch

Etymologies

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Examples

  • The humans, a Paleo-Indian grouping known as the Clovis culture for the distinctive spear points they employed, suffered a major population drop, disappearing in many areas for hundreds of years.

    Boing Boing 2008

  • Manachagui Cave contains stratified cultural deposits that span the latter Paleo-Indian period, and the Preceramic periods (approx 1800 BC to 1532 AD).

    Rio Abiseo National Park, Peru 2008

  • Moreover, they added, archaeological evidence suggests the Clovis culture may have been relative latecomers to the Americas or descendants of earlier Paleo-Indian populations represented at archaeological sites such as Monte Verde in Chile.

    Archive 2008-03-01 Jan 2008

  • The tool cache is one of only a handful of Clovis-age artifact caches that have been unearthed in North America, said Bamforth, who studies Paleo-Indian culture and tools.

    Archive 2009-03-01 News from Mad Plato 2007

  • The tool cache is one of only a handful of Clovis-age artifact caches that have been unearthed in North America, said Bamforth, who studies Paleo-Indian culture and tools.

    FACE OF SORROW HAIKU News from Mad Plato 2007

  • Elsewhere in Central and South America, late Paleo-Indian and Archaic hunter-gatherers adapted to every kind of Holocene environment imaginable, from cold, oceanic coastlines in the far south to the dense rain forest in the Amazon basin and high-altitude plateaux in the Andes Mountains.

    6. Central and South Americans 2001

  • Here Paleo-Indian, and later, more sophisticated Archaic big-game hunting cultures diversified over a period of more than 10,000 years, right into modern times.

    5. Paleo-Indian and Archaic North Americans 2001

  • In the desert interior, Paleo-Indian and Archaic cultures developed a remarkable expertise with wild plant foods.

    5. Paleo-Indian and Archaic North Americans 2001

  • For example, a band of Paleo-Indian hunters drove a large bison herd into a gully at Olsen-Chubbock, Colorado, in 6000 B.C.E. By analyzing the thousands of bison bones in the gully, archaeologists have managed to reconstruct the standardized butchery techniques the Indians used after the hunt.

    2. Food Remains 2001

  • Whatever the cause of extinction, the disappearance of big game fostered greater cultural diversity among Paleo-Indian groups.

    H. The First Settlement of the Americas (c. 15,000 Years Ago) 2001

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