257 Chapter 15 Clovis Caches: Current Perspectives and Future Directions J. David Kilby 1 and Bruce B. Huckell 2 ABSTRACT Scattered sporadically across much of the American interior are tight clusters of Clovis artifacts identiied as material caches. Clovis caches consist of bifaces, projectile points, blades, lakes, cores, bone and ivory rods, and occasionally other items that appear to have been carefully set aside rather than discarded or lost. As the deining attributes of Clovis caches have become clearer, caches are recognized and reported with increasing frequency, in the form of new discoveries in the ield and among existing collections. The irst section of this paper provides an overview of currently known Clovis caches, ranging from assemblages discovered as much as 50 years ago to less familiar collections just coming to light, with the goal of pre- senting an up-to-date synopsis for every reported cache attributed to Clovis. A second section reviews our current understanding of the temporal and spatial distribution of Clovis caching and caching behavior, along with some proposed explanations for those patterns. A inal section provides an overview of contemporary perspectives on Clovis caches, with special consideration given to their relationships to other assemblages and to Clovis migration and mobility, along with a summary of current and future directions for research involving Clovis caches. KEYWORDS: Clovis, Caching, Lithic technology, Technological organization, Colonization 1 Department of Anthropology and Applied Archaeology, Eastern New Mexico University, 1500 S. Ave K, Station 53, Portales, NM 88130 2 Department of Anthropology and Maxwell Museum of Anthro- pology, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM 87131 Corresponding author e-mail: 1 david.kilby@enmu.edu Introduction In the archaeological literature, the term cache has been used to refer to both a particular class of assemblages and a class of archaeological sites or features characterized by these as- semblages. While providing a deinition of cache that is si- multaneously straightforward and inclusive is dificult, it is suficient to deine them here as collections of artifacts that were intentionally set aside in the past as opposed to dis- carded, abandoned, or lost (see Kilby and Huckell in press for a more detailed consideration of a deinition). A Clovis cache is any such assemblage, feature, or site that can be attributed to Clovis through diagnostic artifacts, distinctive technology, dating, or stratigraphy. In many ways caches con- stitute a unique class of archaeological site, and can be seen to ill a position in the record of Clovis lithic technology be- tween manufacture at raw-material sources and workshops and loss or discard at kill sites, camp sites, or at isolated locations. That is, caches relect retention of manufactured products—be they lakes, partially reduced pieces of mate- rial, or inished tools—from sources/workshops and deposi- tion of these products in temporary storage locales. A second Clovis Caches: Current Perspectives and Future Directions