Museum Paleoindian Period

10,000 and more years ago

The first people known to have lived near Parris Island we call “PaleoIndians.” Research near Allendale, South Carolina may be among some of the earliest documented human occupation in all of North America. Archaeologists are not yet certain when people arrivedhere. The most common accepted dates are about 12,500 years ago, but itmay be as much as 35,000 years if the Allendale excavations provecorrect. Paleo people produced distrinictive projectile points like the “Clovis” point here. Similar points have been found in Beaufort county, but none to date have been found on Parris Island.

This may be due to changes in sea levels since the Holocene (Paleo Indian times). PaleoIndians were primarily hunters of large game, but likely also made use of the environments along rivers, marches, and the ocean.