Atlantis Online
March 29, 2024, 10:47:59 am
Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
News: Comet theory collides with Clovis research, may explain disappearance of ancient people
http://uscnews.sc.edu/ARCH190.html
 
  Home Help Arcade Gallery Links Staff List Calendar Login Register  

Florida Sinkhole Holds 12,000-Year_Old Clues To Early Americans - UPDATES

Pages: [1]   Go Down
  Print  
Author Topic: Florida Sinkhole Holds 12,000-Year_Old Clues To Early Americans - UPDATES  (Read 643 times)
0 Members and 63 Guests are viewing this topic.
Bianca
Superhero Member
******
Posts: 41646



« on: February 20, 2009, 06:32:27 am »










Earlier this year, students working in a Florida sinkhole (inset) found the remains of a gourd that probably was used as a canteen by an ancient hunter about 8,000 or 9,000 years ago, according to researchers.

These remains and others found at the site come from the earliest known period of human activity in the Western Hemisphere, added the underwater archaeology team exploring the site.




Photograph courtesy
John Gifford;

inset photograph courtesy
Peter Masa
« Last Edit: March 12, 2009, 08:43:04 pm by Bianca » Report Spam   Logged

Your mind understands what you have been taught; your heart what is true.

Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Bianca
Superhero Member
******
Posts: 41646



« Reply #1 on: February 20, 2009, 06:44:33 am »











                              Sinkhole Holds 12,000-Year-Old Clues to Early Americans





Willie Drye
for National Geographic News
February 18, 2009

Divers exploring a southern Florida sinkhole have uncovered clues to what life was like for some of America's first residents.

Led by University of Miami professor John Gifford, underwater archaeologists are exploring Little Salt Spring, 12 miles (19 kilometers) south of Sarasota.

Earlier this year, students working about 30 feet (9 meters) below the surface found the remains of a gourd that probably was used as a canteen by an ancient hunter about 8,000 or 9,000 years ago, according to Gifford.

Archaeologists have been recovering primitive relics from the spring since 1977, when divers found the remains of a large, now extinct tortoise and a sharpened stake that may have been used by a hungry hunter to kill the animal 12,000 years ago.

In 1986, Gifford and his colleagues recovered a skull with brain tissue from what he thinks was an ancient burial in shallow water near the spring. He continues to work with DNA samples to determine the date of the find.

Gifford and other archaeologists found more from the tortoise this past July, along with the slaughtered remains of a giant ground sloth.

The discovery of the sloth's bones, Gifford said, could indicate that Little Salt Spring was a sort of ancient butcher shop where hunters often killed their prey and prepared meat when this was dry land.

These remains come from the earliest known period of human activity in the Western Hemisphere, said Gifford, who has received funding for his work from the National Geographic Society's Committee for Research and Exploration. (National Geographic News is owned by the National Geographic Society.)

"This is a warehouse of environmental, natural, historical, and archaeological remains in a very, very well preserved environment," said Roger Smith, Florida's state underwater archaeologist.

"That's why it's a world-class site. I would call it a portal back into time."



(Watch a video about Ice Age people in Florida.)
Report Spam   Logged

Your mind understands what you have been taught; your heart what is true.
Bianca
Superhero Member
******
Posts: 41646



« Reply #2 on: February 20, 2009, 06:46:46 am »










The "Sinkhole State"



Sinkholes in Florida form when water from underground aquifers dissolves the porous limestone bedrock and pushes toward the surface. Eventually, the ground collapses into the water and an hourglass-shaped sinkhole is formed.

Florida has more springs than any other state in the U.S. Some are quite large, while others—such as Little Salt Spring—are smaller, at 243 feet (74 meters) wide. Because the spring water comes from underground, it stays at a constant temperature of 75 degrees Fahrenheit (24 degrees Celsius).

When Little Salt Spring was formed during the last Ice Age, sea level was lower and what is now the Florida peninsula was much wider. Sources of freshwater were scarce. Ancient Native Americans came to the sinkhole to drink the water and perhaps find a meal.

"Florida was much drier than it is today," Gifford said. "Essentially, [little Salt Spring] was an oasis." Gifford and his divers worked last summer on a ledge about 90 feet (27 meters) below the surface where the stake and tortoise remains were found. 
Report Spam   Logged

Your mind understands what you have been taught; your heart what is true.
Bianca
Superhero Member
******
Posts: 41646



« Reply #3 on: February 20, 2009, 06:48:03 am »










Ancient Environment



Gifford's divers will return to lower depths of Little Salt Spring soon, but will wait until their recent finds have been analyzed. They hope to eventually uncover evidence of campfires on the ledge. And because Little Salt Spring's waters contain little or no oxygen that would support bacteria that eats away at artifacts, it's possible they'll find near pristine items.

"There may be lots of stuff—basketry, woven fabrics, wooden implements—that you wouldn't otherwise find in an archaeological context," said Bruce Smith, curator of North American Archaeology at the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C.

Finding fragile wooden artifacts would "open a new window" of understanding how early Native Americans lived, Smith said. "You can really get excited by it."



SOURCES AND RELATED WEB SITES

Florida State Underwater Archaeology
National Museum of Natural History: Bruce Smith
University of Miami: John Gifford
Report Spam   Logged

Your mind understands what you have been taught; your heart what is true.
Bianca
Superhero Member
******
Posts: 41646



« Reply #4 on: February 26, 2009, 11:19:32 am »









Contact: Marie Guma-Diaz
m.gumadiaz@umiami.edu
305-284-1601
University of Miami



                  Little Salt Spring underwater archeological site in Florida receives new funding
 
     
   



 VIDEO: This is the excavation of a 27 meter ledge at underwater archeological preserve in Little Salt Spring.
   
     
UrekAlert.com
SARASOTA COUNTY, FL
(February 19, 2009)

—The Gulf Coast Community Foundation of Venice has awarded the University of Miami (UM) $250,000 toward expansion of research and educational facilities at the underwater archeological and ecological preserve, Little Salt Spring (LSS), in North Port, Sarasota County, Florida. The site is of enormous archeological and anthropological value due to its antiquity and exceptional preservation of ancient organic material.

The gift was announced earlier this year, during a reception in Naples, Florida, to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the University's exploration of the preserve. The site is a national archeological treasure, said Teri A. Hansen, president and CEO of Gulf Coast Community Foundation of Venice.

"Little Salt Spring is arguably one of the most important archaeological sites in the country, and it's right here in southern Sarasota County," said Hansen. "By supporting the University of Miami's work at the spring, we can help create a significant archaeological research facility in North Port while also providing public access and educational opportunities at this fascinating preserve."

The project to expand the facilities includes construction of a hurricane-protected research, training and outreach facility complete with a visitor's center. There will be classrooms for public school visits and safe storage for the priceless artifacts. The project is expected to cost $1 million. To date, the University has received $350,000 toward this goal including $250,000 from the Gulf Coast Community Foundation of Venice and $100,000 from the Selby Foundation of Sarasota.

Development of the 110-acre preserve will allow the University to increase site research and excavation. It provides UM the opportunity to share this important archaeological resource with the community, while developing an important scientific and educational hub for university students, researchers, and other academics.

"The University of Miami takes its stewardship of Little Salt Spring very seriously," said Donna E. Shalala, president of the University of Miami. "The project to expand our work at the preserve will give our scientists the tools they need to open a doorway to pre-historic Florida and bring the site's treasures to Florida's Southwest community."

The spring located about ten miles from the Gulf of Mexico consists of a sinkhole fed by an aquifer that is thousands of feet deep. All the dissolved oxygen in the Spring's water is absorbed before it enters the bottom of the sinkhole, thus preventing agents of decomposition such as bacteria and microbes to survive. This unusual feature has allowed the preservation of a great deal of organic material deposited there thousands of years ago, explained John Gifford, associate professor at the Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science and principal investigator for the project.

"Little Salt Spring is unique in its ability to preserve prehistoric artifacts and organic matter," said Gifford. "Excavation and careful study of environmental samples and other materials recovered from the site will help us discover if there were people here earlier than we had believed; it will help us understand who these people were and what way of life they practiced."

The preserve was donated to the University in 1982. In 2005, UM began an ongoing partnership with the Florida Aquarium (Tampa) who provides volunteer SCUBA divers to assist in the underwater research. In 2008, researchers from Washington State University and Pennsylvania State University began long-term collaborative projects studying the botanical remains, vertebrate paleontology, geology, and DNA of plant, animal and any human remains that might be found at the site. Last year, the National Geographic Society awarded funding to the University to explore the 90-foot-deep ledge deposits at LSS.

Objects excavated to date at LSS include deer antler tools, green stone pendants, bone tools and wooden relics, fossils of extinct prehistoric creatures, a 7,000 year-old skull with brain tissue who's mitochondrial DNA revealed a genetic lineage not previously identified in the Americas.


###

To watch a video of an underwater expedition at Little Salt Springs, go to:
Report Spam   Logged

Your mind understands what you have been taught; your heart what is true.
Bianca
Superhero Member
******
Posts: 41646



« Reply #5 on: March 12, 2009, 08:42:19 pm »










                                 Archaeologist to discuss shipwrecks in the Florida Keys 
 
 
 

 
Provided by Linda Massey
Charlotte Sun Herald
NORTH PORT
March 10, 2009

-- The Warm Mineral Springs/Little Salt Spring Archaeological Society will play host to archaeologist
Jeff Moates at 6:30 p.m. March 19.

  From 2004 to 2006, Moates worked with a team of archaeologists from the Florida Department of State, Bureau of Archaeological Research on 15 shipwrecks in the Florida Keys. Included in the investigations was a survey for and establishment of the 1733 Galleon Trail and documentation of the Mystery Wreck and the Brick Wreck.

  Moates is the director of the West Central Regional Center of the Florida Public Archaeology Network at the University of South Florida. He earned a master's degree in history/historical archaeology and a bachelor's degree in anthropology from the University of West Florida in Pensacola. He is a Florida native who grew up in Bradenton.

  The Warm Mineral Springs/Little Salt Spring Archaeological Society meets on the third Thursday of every month in the Juliano Room of the North Port Library, on the corner of U.S. 41 and Biscayne Drive. Everyone is invited.



  For more information, call Hilda Boron at 941-426-1719.
Report Spam   Logged

Your mind understands what you have been taught; your heart what is true.
Pages: [1]   Go Up
  Print  
 
Jump to:  

Powered by EzPortal
Bookmark this site! | Upgrade This Forum
SMF For Free - Create your own Forum
Powered by SMF | SMF © 2016, Simple Machines
Privacy Policy