Prehistory of West Virginia - Paleo-Indian Period

Paleo-Indian Period

Paleo-Indian culture appeared by 10,500 BCE in West Virginia along the major river valleys and ridge-line gap watersheds. The New Trout Cave in Pendleton County has been studied by archaeologists since 1966 and is one of many Paleo-Indian cave shelters in the region. This ancient cave settlement is near Lake Maumee. Among the Megafauna of the region, a few American mastodon teeth have been found on the broader river bottoms in western West Virginia. Wooly mammoths, mastodons, and caribou lived in the Kanawha Valley but died off or migrated north as the climate warmed.

The Meadowcroft Rockshelter is less than a dozen miles from the Northern Panhandle of West Virginia. Kanawha Chert from West Virginia was found at Meadowcroft Rockshelter, Washington County, Pennsylvania. Kanawha Chert source is 183.4 miles (114 km) southwest of Meadowcroft. Paleo occupation has been dated from 11,320–14,225 BCE by radiocarbon dating. Paleo-Indian Clovis culture peoples left fluted Clovis points in West Virginia. Plano cultures (8000-7000 BCE) created Clovis-knapped spear points lacking the groove or flute of the earlier Clovis Point. Plano peoples moved westward and hunted bison on the High Plains extending to Ohio and into the early Archaic time period. The Dalton Tradition (8500-7900 BCE) represents another technical shift, characterized by a particular type of adze. The earliest stone point surface finds, like the Dalton variants (8700–8200 BCE), are very rare.

Paleo-Indians lived in eastern North America by 6000 BCE, and by 4000 BCE had clearly differentiated into two groups: the southern archaic Isawnid (Indian Knoll culture of Kentucky) and the northern archaic Lenid (Great Lakes Area) peoples