 Probably the major issue troubling American archaeology over the last several decades has been establishing when the first humans arrived in the western hemisphere.For nearly half a century the large majority of working archaeologists adhered to the notion that people making and using the distinctive Clovis "point" and its associated lithic technology were the first to arrive about 13,500 calendar years ago and to have spread quickly throughout the Americas.However, there was always a small archaeological minority who contended that the first Americans (in the broadest, two-continent, sense) had been here long before Clovis times on both the east and west margins of both continents.