Wednesday, February 12, 2014

WILSALL, MONTANA—In 1968, the only known Clovis burial site was discovered accidentally on the property of the Anzick family in central Montana. The 12,600-year-old grave, the oldest in North America, contained the skeleton of a small child and some 125 artifacts, including Clovis fluted spear points and tools made from rare elk antlers. Now, DNA obtained from the bones indicates that the Clovis people are direct ancestors to some 80 percent of modern Native Americans. The results also suggest that the Clovis people originated in Asia. “I feel like this discovery confirms what tribes never really doubted—that we’ve been here since time immemorial and that all of the artifacts in the ground are remnants of our direct ancestors,” Shane Doyle of Montana State University told Live Science.