Pre-Clovis occupation 14,550 years ago at the Page-Ladson site, Florida, and the peopling of the Americas

Sci Adv. 2016 May 13;2(5):e1600375. doi: 10.1126/sciadv.1600375. eCollection 2016 May.

Abstract

Stone tools and mastodon bones occur in an undisturbed geological context at the Page-Ladson site, Florida. Seventy-one radiocarbon ages show that ~14,550 calendar years ago (cal yr B.P.), people butchered or scavenged a mastodon next to a pond in a bedrock sinkhole within the Aucilla River. This occupation surface was buried by ~4 m of sediment during the late Pleistocene marine transgression, which also left the site submerged. Sporormiella and other proxy evidence from the sediments indicate that hunter-gatherers along the Gulf Coastal Plain coexisted with and utilized megafauna for ~2000 years before these animals became extinct at ~12,600 cal yr B.P. Page-Ladson expands our understanding of the earliest colonizers of the Americas and human-megafauna interaction before extinction.

Keywords: Archaeology; Florida; Late Pleistocene; Megafauna Extinction; Page-Ladson; Paleoindian; Pre-Clovis; Prehistoric America; Sporormiella; underwater archaeology.

Publication types

  • Historical Article
  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
  • Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.

MeSH terms

  • Animals
  • Archaeology*
  • Extinction, Biological
  • Florida
  • Fossils*
  • Geography
  • History, Ancient
  • Humans
  • Population Dynamics
  • Radiometric Dating