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

doi:10.1126/sciadv.1600375

. 2016 May 13;2(5):e1600375.

doi: 10.1126/sciadv.1600375. eCollection 2016 May.

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

Affiliations

¹ Department of Anthropology, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL 32306, USA.
² Center for the Study of the First Americans, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843, USA.; Department of Anthropology, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843, USA.; Department of Geography, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843, USA.
³ Department of Anthropology, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843, USA.
⁴ Department of Archaeology, University of Exeter, Exeter EX4 4QE, UK.; The Charles McBurney Laboratory for Geoarchaeology, Division of Archaeology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 3DZ, UK.
⁵ University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455, USA.; Institute for Rock Magnetism, Department of Earth Sciences, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455, USA.
⁶ Department of Geosciences, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721, USA.
⁷ Texas Memorial Museum, University of Texas, Austin, TX 78705, USA.
⁸ Museum of Paleontology and Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA.
⁹ Stafford Research Laboratories, Lafayette, CO 80026, USA.
¹⁰ Aucilla Research Institute Inc., 555 North Jefferson Street, Monticello, FL 32344, USA.

PMID: 27386553
PMCID: PMC4928949
DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.1600375

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

Jessi J Halligan et al. Sci Adv. 2016.

. 2016 May 13;2(5):e1600375.

doi: 10.1126/sciadv.1600375. eCollection 2016 May.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ Department of Anthropology, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL 32306, USA.
² Center for the Study of the First Americans, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843, USA.; Department of Anthropology, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843, USA.; Department of Geography, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843, USA.
³ Department of Anthropology, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843, USA.
⁴ Department of Archaeology, University of Exeter, Exeter EX4 4QE, UK.; The Charles McBurney Laboratory for Geoarchaeology, Division of Archaeology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 3DZ, UK.
⁵ University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455, USA.; Institute for Rock Magnetism, Department of Earth Sciences, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455, USA.
⁶ Department of Geosciences, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721, USA.
⁷ Texas Memorial Museum, University of Texas, Austin, TX 78705, USA.
⁸ Museum of Paleontology and Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA.
⁹ Stafford Research Laboratories, Lafayette, CO 80026, USA.
¹⁰ Aucilla Research Institute Inc., 555 North Jefferson Street, Monticello, FL 32344, USA.

PMID: 27386553
PMCID: PMC4928949
DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.1600375

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.

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Figures

**Fig. 1. Page-Ladson site map.**
(A) Location of Page-Ladson in northwestern Florida. (B) Map of the Page-Ladson underwater excavations, showing the entire sinkhole and previous excavation areas, as well as excavation areas and sediment cores reported in this paper. Core 4A is marked with a blue star. Other cores are marked with blue circles. Previous excavations are marked with yellow. Our excavations are marked with red. Contours are in meters below datum. (C) Detailed map displaying the location of bones (gray), drawn to scale, and artifacts (black) recovered from geological Units 3a to 3c and 4a to 4b.

**Fig. 2. Stratigraphy of excavation units at the Page-Ladson site displaying pre-Clovis artifacts and radiocarbon ages.**
(A) Artifact 12209-a. (B) Artifact 12209-b. (C) Artifact 12242-1. (D) Artifact 12068-2. (E) Artifact 12068-1. (F) Artifact 12080-1. (A) to (E) are flakes; (D) shows evidence of use. (F) is a biface. (G) 2014 wall profiles showing stratigraphy, locations of artifact finds, and location of radiocarbon samples. (H) 2013 wall profiles showing stratigraphy, locations of artifact finds, and location of radiocarbon samples. For (G) and (H), white dots represent locations and ages of radiocarbon samples collected from profiles. Purple dots and text represent radiocarbon ages collected from within units, plotted with correct elevation, and northing or easting. Red triangles show locations of artifacts collected from within units, plotted with correct elevation, and northing or easting. Open red circle shows approximate location of artifacts found in the screen. Trees in the profile are represented by dark brown. Note that although the biface appears as if it were found in the middle of a tree, the tree only occurs in the south wall profile and does not extend into the excavation unit where the biface was found.

**Fig. 3. Core 4A from Page-Ladson.**
From left to right: Uncalibrated radiocarbon ages and locations; depths below datum; images of core 4A to scale; stratum designations as discussed in text; Bayesian age model of radiocarbon ages from OxCal version 4.2.4 (–32); *Sporormiella* influx curve calculated from *Sporormiella* concentrations, age model, and sedimentation rates (Supplementary Materials); and archaeological components discovered at the Page-Ladson site plotted by geological association. Younger Dryas stadial (~12,850 to 11,700 cal yr B.P.) is indicated using the age model to determine boundaries.

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[1] Raghavan M., Steinrücken M., Harris K., Schiffels S., Rasmussen S., DeGiorgio M., Albrechtsen A., Valdiosera C., Ávila-Arcos M. C., Malaspinas A.-S., Eriksson A., Moltke I., Metspalu M., Homburger J. R., Wall J., Cornejo O. E., Víctor Moreno-Mayar J., Korneliussen T. S., Pierre T., Rasmussen M., Campos P. F., de Barros Damgaard P., Allentoft M. E., Lindo J., Metspalu E., Rodríguez-Varela R., Mansilla J., Henrickson C., Seguin-Orlando A., Malmström H., Stafford T. Jr, Shringarpure S. S., Moreno-Estrada A., Karmin M., Tambets K., Bergström A., Xue Y., Warmuth V., Friend A. D., Singarayer J., Valdes P., Balloux F., Leboreiro I., Luis Vera J., Rangel-Villalobos H., Pettener D., Luiselli D., Davis L. G., Heyer E., Zollikofer C. P. E., Ponce de León M. S., Smith C. I., Grimes V., Pike K.-A., Deal M., Fuller B. T., Arriaza B., Standen V., Luz M. F., Ricaut F., Guidon N., Osipova L., Voevoda M. I., Posukh O. L., Balanovsky O., Lavryashina M., Bogunov Y., Khusnutdinova E., Gubina M., Balanovska E., Fedorova S., Litvinov S., Malyarchuk B., Derenko M., Mosher M. J., Archer D., Cybulski J., Petzelt B., Mitchell J., Worl R., Norman P. J., Parham P., Kemp B. M., Kivisild T., Tyler-Smith C., Sandhu M. S., Crawford M., Villems R., Glenn Smith D., Waters M. R., Goebel T., Johnson J. R., Malhi R. S., Jakobsson M., Meltzer D. J., Manica A., Durbin R., Bustamante C. D., Song Y. S., Nielsen R., Willerslev E., Genomic evidence for the Pleistocene and recent population history of Native Americans. Science 349, aab3884 (2015). - PMC - PubMed

[2] Raghavan M., Steinrücken M., Harris K., Schiffels S., Rasmussen S., DeGiorgio M., Albrechtsen A., Valdiosera C., Ávila-Arcos M. C., Malaspinas A.-S., Eriksson A., Moltke I., Metspalu M., Homburger J. R., Wall J., Cornejo O. E., Víctor Moreno-Mayar J., Korneliussen T. S., Pierre T., Rasmussen M., Campos P. F., de Barros Damgaard P., Allentoft M. E., Lindo J., Metspalu E., Rodríguez-Varela R., Mansilla J., Henrickson C., Seguin-Orlando A., Malmström H., Stafford T. Jr, Shringarpure S. S., Moreno-Estrada A., Karmin M., Tambets K., Bergström A., Xue Y., Warmuth V., Friend A. D., Singarayer J., Valdes P., Balloux F., Leboreiro I., Luis Vera J., Rangel-Villalobos H., Pettener D., Luiselli D., Davis L. G., Heyer E., Zollikofer C. P. E., Ponce de León M. S., Smith C. I., Grimes V., Pike K.-A., Deal M., Fuller B. T., Arriaza B., Standen V., Luz M. F., Ricaut F., Guidon N., Osipova L., Voevoda M. I., Posukh O. L., Balanovsky O., Lavryashina M., Bogunov Y., Khusnutdinova E., Gubina M., Balanovska E., Fedorova S., Litvinov S., Malyarchuk B., Derenko M., Mosher M. J., Archer D., Cybulski J., Petzelt B., Mitchell J., Worl R., Norman P. J., Parham P., Kemp B. M., Kivisild T., Tyler-Smith C., Sandhu M. S., Crawford M., Villems R., Glenn Smith D., Waters M. R., Goebel T., Johnson J. R., Malhi R. S., Jakobsson M., Meltzer D. J., Manica A., Durbin R., Bustamante C. D., Song Y. S., Nielsen R., Willerslev E., Genomic evidence for the Pleistocene and recent population history of Native Americans. Science 349, aab3884 (2015). - PMC - PubMed

[3] Skoglund P., Mallick S., Bortolini M. C., Chennagiri N., Hünemeier T., Petzl-Erler M. L., Salzano F. M., Patterson N., Reich D., Genetic evidence for two founding populations of the Americas. Nature 525, 104–108 (2015). - PMC - PubMed

[4] Skoglund P., Mallick S., Bortolini M. C., Chennagiri N., Hünemeier T., Petzl-Erler M. L., Salzano F. M., Patterson N., Reich D., Genetic evidence for two founding populations of the Americas. Nature 525, 104–108 (2015). - PMC - PubMed

[5] Gilbert M. T. P., Gilbert M. T. P., Jenkins D. L., Götherstrom A., Naveran N., Sanchez J. J., Hofreiter M., Thomsen P. F., Binladen J., Higham T. F. G., Yohe R. M. II, Parr R., Cummings L. S., Willerslev E., DNA from pre-Clovis human coprolites in Oregon, North America. Science 320, 786–789 (2008). - PubMed

[6] Gilbert M. T. P., Gilbert M. T. P., Jenkins D. L., Götherstrom A., Naveran N., Sanchez J. J., Hofreiter M., Thomsen P. F., Binladen J., Higham T. F. G., Yohe R. M. II, Parr R., Cummings L. S., Willerslev E., DNA from pre-Clovis human coprolites in Oregon, North America. Science 320, 786–789 (2008). - PubMed

[7] D. J. Joyce, in Paleoamerican Odyssey, K. Graf, C. Ketron, M. R. Waters, Eds. (Center for the Study of the First Americans, College Station, TX, 2013), pp. 467–484.

[8] D. J. Joyce, in Paleoamerican Odyssey, K. Graf, C. Ketron, M. R. Waters, Eds. (Center for the Study of the First Americans, College Station, TX, 2013), pp. 467–484.

[9] T. D. Dillehay, Monte Verde: A Late Pleistocene Settlement in Chile (Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, 1989), vol. 2. - PubMed

[10] T. D. Dillehay, Monte Verde: A Late Pleistocene Settlement in Chile (Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, 1989), vol. 2. - PubMed

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

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

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