Page-Ladson prehistory site
Encyclopedia
The Page-Ladson prehistory site is a deep hole in the bed of the Aucilla River
(between Jefferson
and Taylor
Counties in the Big Bend
region of Florida
) that has stratified
deposits of late Pleistocene
and early Holocene
animal bones and human artifacts reaching back to about 14,500 to 12,500 calendar years Before Present
. The earliest dates for artifacts recovered from the site are between 1,000 and 1,500 years before the advent of the Clovis culture
.
At the height of the last ice age
(the Wisconsin glaciation
), the sea level was up to 100 meters lower than at present. Most of Florida is a thick limestone
platform, with typical Karst topography
. As limestone is porous, salt water penetrates the lower part of the Florida platform, and fresh water floats on top of the salt water. With the lowered sea level of the ice age, the fresh water table in Florida was also lowered, leaving most of Florida much drier than it is at present. The only reliable sources of fresh water at elevations that are currently above sea level were sinkhole
s and the deeper parts of river beds. The Page-Ladson site was one of those watering holes, located in a ravine
that is now the bed of the river.
The lower part of the Aucilla River is partly underground, surfacing for short stretches and then disappearing again. The Page-Ladson site is located in one of the above ground sections, known as Half-Mile Run (although it is closer to one mile long). Other sites on the Aucilla River are also yielding paleontological
and archaeological
finds, all as part of a long-running Aucilla River Prehistory Project.
Starting in 1959, Dick Ohmes and other scuba divers
began retrieving artifacts and Pleistocene animal bones with butcher
marks from the lower reaches of the Aucilla River. A team led by archaeologist James Dunbar and paleontologist S. David Webb began a survey of Half-Mile Run in 1983. A former U.S. Navy Seal
, Buddy Page, showed them a site where he had found elephant
bones. A 20 inches (508 mm) test pit yielded elephant bones, bone tools and chips from tool making. Radiocarbon dating
of organic material from the pit yielded dates from 13,000 to 11,700 years Before Present
. The owners of the land surrounding Half-Mile Run, the Ladson family, granted permission to the team to access and camp along Half-Mile Run. The Site was therefore named Page-Ladson.
Excavation of the Page-Ladson site spanned the period from 1983 until 1997. As the project progressed, the team developed new methods of recording the stratigraphic placement of all material in an underwater environment.
The lowest strata in Page-Ladson is late Pleistocene. In includes mastodon
, mammoth
, horse
and ground sloth
, palaeolama
bones and "straw mats" of chopped vegetation (leaves, bark and wood) of relatively uniform length. The length of the chopped vegetation is consistent with the spacing between cusps on mastodon teeth, and the "straw mats" have been interpreted as equivalent to the layers of trampled elephant
dung found around water holes in Africa
. Elephant steroids have been identified in the "digesta" deposits at Page-Ladson and Latvis-Simpson (a 32,000-year-old mastodon site farther south in the Aucilla). Some of the bones from this level show apparent human-made cut marks, particularly a complete mastodon tusk. Ivory
spear points (often called "foreshafts") are found more frequently in the Aucilla River than everywhere else in North America combined. Samples from the "straw mat" level have yielded radiocarbon dates from 13,130 +/- 200 to 11,770 +/- 90 years Before Present
. The "straw mat" level is covered by a layer of mud that did not contain any bones of extinct animals.
In 1996 an Early Archaic Bolen habitation level was found. At least three hearth
s were identified, and various stone points, scraper
s, adze
s and gouges were found, as well as antler points used to press flakes off the stone tools. Three wooden stakes were found upright in the ground, and a cypress log that had been burned on the top side and hollowed out. Radiocarbon dating yielded dates around 10,000 years Before Present. The site was well-preserved because it had been flooded by a rise in the river level within a hundred years after the site was occupied.
Aucilla River
The Aucilla River rises close to Thomasville, Georgia, USA, and passes through the Big Bend region of Florida, emptying into the Gulf of Mexico at Apalachee Bay. The river is long and has a drainage basin of . The Wacissa River is a tributary...
(between Jefferson
Jefferson County, Florida
Jefferson County is a county located in the U.S. state of Florida. As of 2000, the population is 12,902. The U.S. Census Bureau 2005 estimate for the county is 14,490 . Its county seat is Monticello, Florida....
and Taylor
Taylor County, Florida
Taylor County is a county located in the state of Florida. As of 2000, the population was 19,256. The U.S. Census Bureau 2005 estimate for the county was 19,622 . Its county seat is Perry, Florida.- History :Taylor County was created in 1856...
Counties in the Big Bend
Big Bend (Florida)
The Big Bend of Florida, U.S.A., is an informal region of the state with no official surveyed boundary. It includes part of the counties of the Florida Panhandle. Geologists prefer to characterize Florida’s Big Bend as the drowned karst section of the coast that occurs between the mouth of the...
region of Florida
Florida
Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...
) that has stratified
Stratum
In geology and related fields, a stratum is a layer of sedimentary rock or soil with internally consistent characteristics that distinguish it from other layers...
deposits of late Pleistocene
Pleistocene
The Pleistocene is the epoch from 2,588,000 to 11,700 years BP that spans the world's recent period of repeated glaciations. The name pleistocene is derived from the Greek and ....
and early Holocene
Holocene
The Holocene is a geological epoch which began at the end of the Pleistocene and continues to the present. The Holocene is part of the Quaternary period. Its name comes from the Greek words and , meaning "entirely recent"...
animal bones and human artifacts reaching back to about 14,500 to 12,500 calendar years Before Present
Before Present
Before Present years is a time scale used in archaeology, geology, and other scientific disciplines to specify when events in the past occurred. Because the "present" time changes, standard practice is to use AD 1950 as the origin of the age scale, reflecting the fact that radiocarbon...
. The earliest dates for artifacts recovered from the site are between 1,000 and 1,500 years before the advent of the Clovis culture
Clovis culture
The Clovis culture is a prehistoric Paleo-Indian culture that first appears 11,500 RCYBP , at the end of the last glacial period, characterized by the manufacture of "Clovis points" and distinctive bone and ivory tools...
.
At the height of the last ice age
Ice age
An ice age or, more precisely, glacial age, is a generic geological period of long-term reduction in the temperature of the Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in the presence or expansion of continental ice sheets, polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers...
(the Wisconsin glaciation
Wisconsin glaciation
The last glacial period was the most recent glacial period within the current ice age occurring during the last years of the Pleistocene, from approximately 110,000 to 10,000 years ago....
), the sea level was up to 100 meters lower than at present. Most of Florida is a thick limestone
Limestone
Limestone is a sedimentary rock composed largely of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of calcium carbonate . Many limestones are composed from skeletal fragments of marine organisms such as coral or foraminifera....
platform, with typical Karst topography
Karst topography
Karst topography is a geologic formation shaped by the dissolution of a layer or layers of soluble bedrock, usually carbonate rock such as limestone or dolomite, but has also been documented for weathering resistant rocks like quartzite given the right conditions.Due to subterranean drainage, there...
. As limestone is porous, salt water penetrates the lower part of the Florida platform, and fresh water floats on top of the salt water. With the lowered sea level of the ice age, the fresh water table in Florida was also lowered, leaving most of Florida much drier than it is at present. The only reliable sources of fresh water at elevations that are currently above sea level were sinkhole
Sinkhole
A sinkhole, also known as a sink, shake hole, swallow hole, swallet, doline or cenote, is a natural depression or hole in the Earth's surface caused by karst processes — the chemical dissolution of carbonate rocks or suffosion processes for example in sandstone...
s and the deeper parts of river beds. The Page-Ladson site was one of those watering holes, located in a ravine
Ravine
A ravine is a landform narrower than a canyon and is often the product of streamcutting erosion. Ravines are typically classified as larger in scale than gullies, although smaller than valleys. A ravine is generally a fluvial slope landform of relatively steep sides, on the order of twenty to...
that is now the bed of the river.
The lower part of the Aucilla River is partly underground, surfacing for short stretches and then disappearing again. The Page-Ladson site is located in one of the above ground sections, known as Half-Mile Run (although it is closer to one mile long). Other sites on the Aucilla River are also yielding paleontological
Paleontology
Paleontology "old, ancient", ὄν, ὀντ- "being, creature", and λόγος "speech, thought") is the study of prehistoric life. It includes the study of fossils to determine organisms' evolution and interactions with each other and their environments...
and archaeological
Archaeology
Archaeology, or archeology , is the study of human society, primarily through the recovery and analysis of the material culture and environmental data that they have left behind, which includes artifacts, architecture, biofacts and cultural landscapes...
finds, all as part of a long-running Aucilla River Prehistory Project.
Starting in 1959, Dick Ohmes and other scuba divers
Scuba diving
Scuba diving is a form of underwater diving in which a diver uses a scuba set to breathe underwater....
began retrieving artifacts and Pleistocene animal bones with butcher
Butcher
A butcher is a person who may slaughter animals, dress their flesh, sell their meat or any combination of these three tasks. They may prepare standard cuts of meat, poultry, fish and shellfish for sale in retail or wholesale food establishments...
marks from the lower reaches of the Aucilla River. A team led by archaeologist James Dunbar and paleontologist S. David Webb began a survey of Half-Mile Run in 1983. A former U.S. Navy Seal
United States Navy SEALs
The United States Navy's Sea, Air and Land Teams, commonly known as Navy SEALs, are the U.S. Navy's principal special operations force and a part of the Naval Special Warfare Command as well as the maritime component of the United States Special Operations Command.The acronym is derived from their...
, Buddy Page, showed them a site where he had found elephant
Proboscidea
Proboscidea is a taxonomic order containing one living family, Elephantidae, and several extinct families. This order was first described by J. Illiger in 1881 and encompasses the trunked mammals...
bones. A 20 inches (508 mm) test pit yielded elephant bones, bone tools and chips from tool making. Radiocarbon dating
Radiocarbon dating
Radiocarbon dating is a radiometric dating method that uses the naturally occurring radioisotope carbon-14 to estimate the age of carbon-bearing materials up to about 58,000 to 62,000 years. Raw, i.e. uncalibrated, radiocarbon ages are usually reported in radiocarbon years "Before Present" ,...
of organic material from the pit yielded dates from 13,000 to 11,700 years Before Present
Before Present
Before Present years is a time scale used in archaeology, geology, and other scientific disciplines to specify when events in the past occurred. Because the "present" time changes, standard practice is to use AD 1950 as the origin of the age scale, reflecting the fact that radiocarbon...
. The owners of the land surrounding Half-Mile Run, the Ladson family, granted permission to the team to access and camp along Half-Mile Run. The Site was therefore named Page-Ladson.
Excavation of the Page-Ladson site spanned the period from 1983 until 1997. As the project progressed, the team developed new methods of recording the stratigraphic placement of all material in an underwater environment.
The lowest strata in Page-Ladson is late Pleistocene. In includes mastodon
Mastodon
Mastodons were large tusked mammal species of the extinct genus Mammut which inhabited Asia, Africa, Europe, North America and Central America from the Oligocene through Pleistocene, 33.9 mya to 11,000 years ago. The American mastodon is the most recent and best known species of the group...
, mammoth
Mammoth
A mammoth is any species of the extinct genus Mammuthus. These proboscideans are members of Elephantidae, the family of elephants and mammoths, and close relatives of modern elephants. They were often equipped with long curved tusks and, in northern species, a covering of long hair...
, horse
Horse
The horse is one of two extant subspecies of Equus ferus, or the wild horse. It is a single-hooved mammal belonging to the taxonomic family Equidae. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million years from a small multi-toed creature into the large, single-toed animal of today...
and ground sloth
Ground sloth
Ground sloths are a diverse group of extinct sloths, in the mammalian superorder Xenarthra. Their most recent survivors lived in the Antilles, where it has been proposed they may have survived until 1550 CE; however, the youngest AMS radiocarbon date reported is 4190 BP, calibrated to c. 4700 BP...
, palaeolama
Palaeolama
Palaeolama is an extinct North and South American genus of lamine camelid.Palaeolama mirifica, the "stout-legged llama", is known from southern California and the southeastern U. S...
bones and "straw mats" of chopped vegetation (leaves, bark and wood) of relatively uniform length. The length of the chopped vegetation is consistent with the spacing between cusps on mastodon teeth, and the "straw mats" have been interpreted as equivalent to the layers of trampled elephant
Elephant
Elephants are large land mammals in two extant genera of the family Elephantidae: Elephas and Loxodonta, with the third genus Mammuthus extinct...
dung found around water holes in Africa
Africa
Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...
. Elephant steroids have been identified in the "digesta" deposits at Page-Ladson and Latvis-Simpson (a 32,000-year-old mastodon site farther south in the Aucilla). Some of the bones from this level show apparent human-made cut marks, particularly a complete mastodon tusk. Ivory
Ivory
Ivory is a term for dentine, which constitutes the bulk of the teeth and tusks of animals, when used as a material for art or manufacturing. Ivory has been important since ancient times for making a range of items, from ivory carvings to false teeth, fans, dominoes, joint tubes, piano keys and...
spear points (often called "foreshafts") are found more frequently in the Aucilla River than everywhere else in North America combined. Samples from the "straw mat" level have yielded radiocarbon dates from 13,130 +/- 200 to 11,770 +/- 90 years Before Present
Before Present
Before Present years is a time scale used in archaeology, geology, and other scientific disciplines to specify when events in the past occurred. Because the "present" time changes, standard practice is to use AD 1950 as the origin of the age scale, reflecting the fact that radiocarbon...
. The "straw mat" level is covered by a layer of mud that did not contain any bones of extinct animals.
In 1996 an Early Archaic Bolen habitation level was found. At least three hearth
Hearth
In common historic and modern usage, a hearth is a brick- or stone-lined fireplace or oven often used for cooking and/or heating. For centuries, the hearth was considered an integral part of a home, often its central or most important feature...
s were identified, and various stone points, scraper
Scraper (archaeology)
In archaeology, scrapers are unifacial tools that were used either for hideworking or woodworking purposes. Whereas this term is often used for any unifacially flaked stone tool that defies classification, most lithic analysts maintain that the only true scrapers are defined on the base of...
s, adze
Adze
An adze is a tool used for smoothing or carving rough-cut wood in hand woodworking. Generally, the user stands astride a board or log and swings the adze downwards towards his feet, chipping off pieces of wood, moving backwards as they go and leaving a relatively smooth surface behind...
s and gouges were found, as well as antler points used to press flakes off the stone tools. Three wooden stakes were found upright in the ground, and a cypress log that had been burned on the top side and hollowed out. Radiocarbon dating yielded dates around 10,000 years Before Present. The site was well-preserved because it had been flooded by a rise in the river level within a hundred years after the site was occupied.