Early snowbirds? Florida sinkhole yields ancient artifacts

Well it seems Florida had ancient inhabitants as far back as 14,500 years ago...

NEW YORK (AP) — 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.

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.

It is really amazing that sinkholes are something that are helping us to learn more about our history.

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.

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.

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.

www.yahoo.com...

I am linking to the Science Advances article mentioned above.

advances.sciencemag.org...

Things just get more interesting by the day concerning our past on this planet.

WOW! Very cool ! ....I live in Florida ....now....and this is really interesting . Thanks for the info !

originally posted by: Meldionne1
WOW! Very cool ! ....I live in Florida ....now....and this is really interesting . Thanks for the info !

You live in FL?!?!

Will go investigate this sinkhole for the ATS community?

It would be nice to have someone on the ground, giving us the unfiltered truth.

a reply to: tsurfer2000h

That's some report.

None of the, "we found some bones" malarkey. Now I'm wondering about the sinkhole, it must predate all the rest.

a reply to: Meldionne1

WOW! Very cool ! ....I live in Florida ....now....and this is really interesting . Thanks for the info !

Spending most of my life there I have seen some sinkholes, but I never thought it could yield things like they have found in this one.

a reply to: smurfy

None of the, "we found some bones" malarkey. Now I'm wondering about the sinkhole, it must predate all the rest.

That's why I thought it would be a very interesting thread...I hope we see more finds like this, because it seems our history is always surprising us.

Fascinating! I have long believed that Human presence in many locations around the world has been vastly underestimated, and much of our own history has undoubtedly been forgotten.

I have to say though I am always a little suspicious of such claims, thanks to the likes of Scott Wolter of American Unearthed, and countless of other so-called "scientists" and "specialists" in their filed who really aren't.

There is a big credibility issue in the US when it comes to science and research, so everything needs to be checked and checked again for any holes in the story. This one looks legit to me though!

originally posted by: Alphaz
It would be nice to have someone on the ground, giving us the unfiltered truth.

I would think the fact that the research paper has been produced on line is a pretty good hint that we are getting the 'unfiltered truth'.

"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."

I'd like to know where Jessi goes for spelunking ... or maybe that was a shorthand error ?

a reply to: Alphaz

I live, apparently, 30miles from the site, but i'm not going sink hole diving.

It should be noted that often these sink holes plunge into the Florida aquifer where there are catacombs of underwater caves. I wonder if what they found originated at that site. This can connect all the way down to tampa.

I wonder when you look at Peru, Bolivia, Egypt and many other places, when you see those ancient all weathered ancient looking metallics walls/structures, most of them (where) covered by big layers of many meters of sand/dirt under the ground which looked very much destroyed by some kind of great destruction (metroid and or earthquakes & a cause for a big flood? or some other catalyst event) a long time ago, +/-8-10.000+ years. Which erased some ancient civilization/people in N-America as well in a long forgotten history of our species, from which only myths and legends and some artifacts, tools and bones have a little clue maybe...

Only thing I'm sure off is that we are species with amnesia as said by Graham Hancock.
This surely doesn't fit in the book of accepted ''knowlegde/history'' about ancient people in N-America...

originally posted by: Pluginn
I wonder when you look at Peru, Bolivia, Egypt and many other places, when you see those ancient all weathered ancient looking metallics walls/structures, most of them (where) covered by big layers of many meters of sand/dirt under the ground which looked very much destroyed by some kind of great destruction

Metallic walls? Do tell!

a reply to: stormcell

Within cows, presumably.

a reply to: tsurfer2000h

That's great, thank you for posting this. I'd never heard of the original findings from a decade ago, so this is great to hear about now!

a reply to: tsurfer2000h
Thanks for this post! I had heard about this find through the archaeology grapevine but hadn't realized the analysis was done and the papers written. It confirms what a lot of us in the field have suspected for many, many years----that the "accepted" dates of human occupation in North America are incorrect by centuries. Perhaps now those who have dismissed all the pre-Clovis finds will take another look.
There are literally dozens of sites all over the southeastern US where radiocarbon dating has confirmed the earlier occupations but have been tossed aside due to the prevailing theories and the politics of academia. One such site in my own state of Kentucky, in a rock shelter in the Red River Gorge. Professional excavations there produced materials dated at 14k years before present back in the '90s.

Very cool, this is in the panhandle. I'm not particularly familiar with the area on a resident level, but I have heard of it. Granted, there's SO many sites around Florida (everything from middens to sinkholes/springs, etc) that under any other circumstance, it's kind of just another news bit. What sets this apart from others really is the age of it, that's spectacular.

originally posted by: Alphaz

originally posted by: Meldionne1
WOW! Very cool ! ....I live in Florida ....now....and this is really interesting . Thanks for the info !

You live in FL?!?!

Will go investigate this sinkhole for the ATS community?

It would be nice to have someone on the ground, giving us the unfiltered truth.

I grew up in Florida, and I'm only going to say this fricking ONCE. Don't encourage stupidity like this.
Florida has a lot of archaeological sites, and all sites are fragile no matter where in the world they are. Just because it's an American site doesn't give anyone (let alone you) the right to trample through looking for validation. Idiots such as yourself, encouraging other idiots, are what leads to damage and destruction. In other words, you're as useless as looters.
Not to mention diving an unfamiliar 'hole is unwise, those caves are often like a lattice through the limestone. Wanna die? Be a dumb ass & sneak-dive without knowing what you're doing.

originally posted by: Nyiah


Not to mention diving an unfamiliar 'hole is unwise,

Never stopped me!

a reply to: smurfy
Your reply gave me a chuckle!

My Beloved agrees with you. He spent his college and graduate time at UF and sinkhole diving was his hobby. He and his buddies rarely dived the same one more than once so for them most were unfamiliar. I think that's part of the excitement of cave and sinkhole diving, something new and different each time. I say I think because there's no way on this earth that anyone will get me to enter a water-filled cave. I admire anyone with that kind of courage and appreciate the efforts of the folks who do underwater archaeology. I've done some basic survey work in above ground caves but can't imagine doing it underwater.

Yes...I live in the keys( and a lot of weird stuff here too...) ...so wouldn't mind investigating this ! ?..will need to figure out where and if I can go there and nit be turned away !
a reply to: Alphaz

Where are you in Florida ? No sink holes in the keys ...yet.... But I know there are tons of underground rivers etc...they are mapping in Florida now ... a reply to: tsurfer2000h

a reply to: tsurfer2000h

I still think that with the lowest sea levels being doe 20,000 years ago we had a lot of land above sea level in the Atlantic which gave people a landing stage on the sea journey from Europe to the Americas.

Knowing this its easy to see that people with their terrific boat skills could easily have crossed, traded etc etc.
Unfortunately historians seem to be have made the mistake of thinking that their views are written in stone and refuse to rewrite history once finds show we need to do so. Pathetic really because it doesn't make sense to want to cover up our past. In fact our ancestors, travelling between those two land masses was an accomplishment we should be proud of.

Great finds, I hope they find some more.