Alex Krieger, has documented hundreds of sites that have yielded assemblages of crude, percussion flaked tools, pebble choppers, scrapers, cores, and flakes.  Krieger assigns them to what he calls a pre-projectile point state because of the conspicuous absence of projectile points at a number of these sites.   His theory is controversial among most archaeologists because the majority of these finds occurs on the surface and have been subjected to disturbance.   Doubt also exists concerning the identification of some of these objects as actual artifacts.  The most convincing evidence for a state is based upon date recovered from sites in South America, where such crude tools have been found in stratigraphically early contents.   Some of these artifacts bearing zones have been dated by the radiocarbon technique to possible more than twenty thousand years ago.

So far the earliest definite evidence of man in the New World, including South America, dates to about 16,000 Before Present (B.P.).  These dates are based upon a number of radiocarbon determinations from archaeological sites where stone implements have been recovered near extinct animals.  In the Tennessee Valley, any dates earlier than 10,000 Before Present (B.P.) are considered to be Paleo.  The lithic assemblages found at these localities have been assigned to an early cultural state called the Paleo-Indian by many archaeologists.  These assemblages include a type of projectile point, with channel flakes or flutes removed from one or both faces, that has little counterpart in the Old World.  It is the product of a specialized technology and represents a culture well adapted to the New World environment.  This suggests that an earlier developmental stage existed in the New World that ultimately produced these fluted point complexes.  The search for evidence of this early lithic state has been long and tumultuous.