Page-Ladson prehistory site
| Page-Ladson prehistory site | |
|---|---|
| Location | Jefferson and Taylor Counties, USA |
| Type | Florida Historic Site |
The Page-Ladson prehistory site (8JE591) is a deep sinkhole in the bed of the karstic Aucilla River (between Jefferson and Taylor counties in the Big Bend region of Florida) that has stratified deposits of late and early Holocene animal bones and human artifacts. A group of eleven artifacts found there have an average age of 15,405 to 14,146 calendar years Before Present (12,425 ± 32 14C years BP). The earliest dates for artifacts recovered from the site are between 1,000 and 1,500 years before the advent of the Clovis culture. The site is the first pre-Clovis site discovered in southeastern North America. Page-Ladson is about 60 m by 45 m wide and 10 m deep. Its significance is that the dating of the artifacts places humans at the location more than one thousand five hundred years prior to earlier evidence and challenges theories that humans quickly decimated large game populations in the area once they arrived.
At the height of the last ice age (the Wisconsin glaciation), the sea level was up to 100 meters lower than at present. Much more land was above the water along the coast, which was extended much farther to the west. 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 also was 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 sinkholes 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. Before it was inundated by the Aucilla river, Page-Ladson was a sinkhole containing a small pond within it.
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