Artifacts Found In Florida Sinkhole Could Rewrite History

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[h=1]Artifacts found in Florida sinkhole could rewrite history[/h]
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In this 2015 photo provided by Texas A&M's Center for the Study of the First Americans, divers investigate the Page-Ladson archaeological site in Florida. Scientists say artifacts found deep underwater in a Florida sinkhole show people lived in that area some 14,500 years ago.

S. JOY/CSFA VIA AP



Last Updated May 13, 2016 6:29 PM EDT

Scientists say a stone knife and other artifacts found deep underwater in a Florida sinkhole show people lived in that area some 14,500 years ago.
That makes the ancient sinkhole the earliest well-documented site for human presence in the southeastern U.S., and important for understanding the settling of the Americas, experts said.
The findings confirm claims made more than a decade ago about the site, some 30 miles southeast of Tallahassee. At that time, researchers reported evidence that humans were there some 14,400 years ago. But in an era when such an old date was widely considered impossible, other experts disputed the evidence, said Mike Waters of Texas A&M University in College Station.
The sinkhole was "just politely ignored," he said.
Waters was among a new team of scientists who excavated there from 2012 to 2014. They report finding the knife and stone flakes in a paper released Friday by the journal Science Advances. The new work offers "far better" evidence for early humans than the earlier research did, he said.
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This 2015 photo provided by Texas A&M's Center for the Study of the First Americans, shows researchers at the Page-Ladson archaeological site in Florida.

(CSFA VIA AP)
The sinkhole is nearly 200 feet wide. In ancient times, it had a shallow pond at the bottom. That offered fresh water and a gathering point for animals, which "probably would have been easy pickings" for hunters who saw them trapped in the deep depression, Waters said.
Today, the sinkhole is filled with about 30 feet of water, and it took divers equipped with head-mounted lights to look for artifacts. It was "as dark as the inside of a cow, literally no light at all," said Jessi Halligan, the lead diving scientist and an assistant professor of anthropology at Florida State University in Tallahassee.
They found the knife while digging with a trowel. It's a couple of inches long and about an inch wide, sharpened on both sides.
To determine its age, the researchers used nearby mastodon dung, which contained twigs that could be analyzed. The twigs, and therefore the knife, were found to be about 14,550 years old.
Man-made stone flakes were found to be about the same age. The scientists also examined a mastodon tusk recovered in 1993, and confirmed that its long, deep grooves were made by people, probably as they worked to remove the tusk from a skull.
The first people in North America are thought to have crossed a now-submerged land bridge from Siberia to Alaska. From there, people spread southward. Waters said the age of the sinkhole artifacts adds to evidence that people may have migrated south from Alaska as early as 16,000 years ago by boat along the coast, because inland Canada was blocked by ice sheets until 2,000 years later.
Halligan said the ancient visitors to the sinkhole could have been the Southeast's first snowbirds, moving south for the winter and north for the summer. They could have followed mastodons, whose remains have been found as far north as Kentucky, she said.
"They were very smart about local plants and local animals and migration patterns," she said.
In American archaeology, sites showing signs of human presence more than about 13,000 years are called "pre-Clovis," since they predate the Clovis era of widespread human occupation.
Dennis Stanford of the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History said that he ranked the sinkhole with two locations in Pennsylvania and Virginia as "the best-dated and oldest pre-Clovis sites yet found in North America."
While the other two sites are older, "the Florida site has a major role to play in learning the story of the peopling of the Americas," said Stanford, who didn't participate in the research.
FSU Lead Diver Jessi Halligan told CBS affiliate WCTV in Tallahassee the items date back to 14,550 years ago, "The day we found that artifact we were really excited because there's absolutely no way that stone knife wasn't made by people."
This puts people here 1,500 years earlier than previous research by scientists.
WCTV talked with Morgan Smith by Skype, he's a doctoral student at Texas A&M who helped with the dive, "I started breathing really fast underwater, like sucking through my air and I just had to control myself."
He remembers the exact moment a team member showed him the ancient find during the dive.
"The moment he showed it to me I couldn't even believe it. So I just turned away like, yeah whatever. Then he was like no I really did find this! I was like are you serious? It was a really intense moment; it was really fun!"
Another expert, James Adovasio of Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton agreed, saying it promises to shed light on "early Native American lifestyle in an environment where these lifestyles are very poorly defined."


CBS/AP

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ancien...da-sinkhole-could-rewrite-pre-clovis-history/
 

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joshuaream

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That is awesome ..... is there any pics of the knife found ? I bet that was one sweet Paleo blade

It’s a biface that only a mother can love. Kind of an odd point, and one of the things that jumped out to everyone is that barring datable material there is no way that anyone would accept the age of a similar point found in a field.
 

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1320

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"To determine its age, the researchers used nearby mastodon dung, which contained twigs that could be analyzed. The twigs, and therefore the knife, were found to be about 14,550 years old."

Unless the Mastodon took a dump right on top of the tool, I hardly think that this is a good way to age the piece. It's entirely plausible that the dung was there 10,000 years before the bi-face came to rest "nearby it."
 

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My understanding is they were excavating the bottom under water and the mastodon tusk and blade were close to each other at the same level under the ground on the bottom of the sink hole, they were not surface finds on the bottom.
 

georgia flatlander

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The knife (tool) was also matched to some of the serrations in the tusk near the skull. This stuff isn't reported lightly, meaning that they didn't make claims about this offhandedly. The hue and cry of archaeologists who had made their livings declaring that there were no inhabiatants in Florida prior to 13,000 years ago was huge. We all have our opinions of how long people have inhabited the southeastern U.S., but archaeologists must have nearly infallible proof before they can make a claim that changes the landscape, so this was a very detailed, investigated and researched incident. She is very thorough and also very inclusive regarding artifacts and avocational enthusiasts.
I think they will continue to find things that prove man was here earlier than is generally accepted, although this particular site is a nightmare (30' underwater in a dark, flowing river), and very difficult to excavate. Discoveries like this one are happening more and more as the "old guard" of archaeologists are retiring and newer ones that are more open-minded take their places.
 

arrow86

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It’s a biface that only a mother can love. Kind of an odd point, and one of the things that jumped out to everyone is that barring datable material there is no way that anyone would accept the age of a similar point found in a field.

Thanks for posting pics , I think it’s beautiful that’s a cool article and would be awesome to be part of a project like that
 

newnan man

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"To determine its age, the researchers used nearby mastodon dung, which contained twigs that could be analyzed. The twigs, and therefore the knife, were found to be about 14,550 years old."

Unless the Mastodon took a dump right on top of the tool, I hardly think that this is a good way to age the piece. It's entirely plausible that the dung was there 10,000 years before the bi-face came to rest "nearby it."
While I agree with the scientist and have been reading about this site for years, the knife being mixed in with dung is a bit of a stretch. I used to look in Hogtown Creek in Gainesville for sharks teeth & points. I've found modern cans, bottles, and other items mixed in with fossils and points at the same level I was digging in.
That being said I think this knife is old and was probably broke while butchering the poor mastadon. Yum! There is good research going on there.
 

ToddsPoint

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An unidentifiable point as to style, found "near" a pile of dung *underwater* that confirmed the date of the point. That's one helluva stretch. Yes, 14,500 B.P. if it's a day! We need more money for research...this is big!

If you don't have a stratified site, you don't have anything except your imagination. Gary
 

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If this evidence is underwater at a sink hole it will be on land somewhere as well you might think. We keep going back further and further and I think that is right. Thanks Treasure hunter for sharing good read.
 

Charl

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Very interesting reading, thanks.

I'm attaching some images for those who might not read the paper.
 

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Charl

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An unidentifiable point as to style, found "near" a pile of dung *underwater* that confirmed the date of the point. That's one helluva stretch. Yes, 14,500 B.P. if it's a day! We need more money for research...this is big!

If you don't have a stratified site, you don't have anything except your imagination. Gary

We don't want folks unfamiliar with this important site to think the site was not stratified, or a figment of some scientist's overactive imagination. In fact, the site occurred in an undisturbed geological context, and a well dated stratified context. The report makes that very clear. Underwater does not imply disturbed or not stratified. Folks interested in the facts of the site have only to read the actual reports. This was a stratified site.

http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/advances/2/5/e1600375/F2.large.jpg?download=true


http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/advances/2/5/e1600375/F3.large.jpg?download=true
 

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