My long term research goal is to continue investigations on both sites of the waterline on the lower Aucilla basin to explicitly address how people have both shaped their landscapes and responded to multiple (often simultaneous) dramatic environmental events (more than 130 meters of sea level rise, the extinction of numerous genera of fauna, dramatic floral changes, seasonal hurricane cycles, etc.) over the past 14,500 years. This project will train the next generation of geoarchaeologists, teaching them how to see the waterline as an opportunity, rather than a boundary, and teach them how to conduct rigorous research in a unique environment. Exploring human relationships with this dynamic landscape entails three research components 1) refining the geological and paleoenvironmental history of the basin to pinpoint the timing and tempo of major changes; 2) using this history to explicitly and precisely define both taphonomic gaps and areas for fruitful investigation; and 3) assessing the archaeological record of the basin in light of these frameworks to discuss indigenous strategies within the lower Aucilla Basin. I hypothesize that, in the low-gradient coastal plain sensitive to sea level change and storm surge, demographic trends in the region track the tempo of landscape dynamism, so that, accounting for taphonomic effects, periods of long-term stability were those of most intense use, while more dynamic periods saw inhabitants either shift their focus to more predictable/stable locales or learn to create stability via aggregation and landscape modification.

Three of the most influential models in the Southeastern US have compellingly argued that early foragers organized their lifeways through seasonal movement along major drainage basins (Anderson and Hanson 1988), around access to raw material sources, crossing drainage basins (Daniel 2001), or around group foraging needs, rather than hunting, following central place foraging models (Hollenbach 2009). While these models are not completely exclusive of one another, it is not clear to what extent any of them are applicable to the distribution of early sites in Florida, as it is an area with low relief, ubiquitous toolstone, little evidence for seasonality, and few to no flowing rivers at the time. Thus, I have undertaken several GIS-based projects to explicitly model human behavior in Florida, in collaboration with several colleagues (Grayal Farr, David K. Thulman, Morgan F. Smith, and Adam Burke). This project is ongoing.

Page Ladson, located in the Half Mile Rise section of the river, is by far the most intensively investigated of all sites in the Aucilla Basin. The site was originally excavated from 1983-1997 by the Aucilla River Prehistory Project (Webb, 2006), when more than 50 units into the terminal Pleistocene strata allowed them to define seven geological units underwater. They reported three underwater cultural components: a controversial pre-Clovis component dating to approximately 14,200 calbp, a few artifacts associated with terminal Pleistocene sediments, and an extensive early Holocene Bolen component. We returned to the site in 2012-2019, conducting additional excavations that confirmed, due to the presence of an unambiguous bifacial tool fragment, a very early cultural component dating ca. 14,550 calbp. More than a hundred radiocarbon ages have confirmed the age of the seven major stratigraphic units at the site, and the well-preserved strata underwater contained a wealth of paleoenvironmental proxy data, including pollen, diatoms, macrobotanicals, and Sporomiella. Micro- and macro-botanical analyses were performed on these sediments to discuss environmental change at the site through time. Sediment analyses showed that shallow pond and fluvial processes deposited several of the strata, but colluvial input has been very important in the older deposits within the center of the sink.

We plan to continue excavations in summer of 2022 into the Bolen strata at the site.

Ryan-Harley, located within a stream bank in the braided Wacissa River, contains a Suwannee component on top of a paleosol (Balsillie, Means, & Dunbar, 2006; Smith, 2020). Suwannee points are undated, but based on seriation (Dunbar et al., 2006; Faught & Pevny, 2019), inferred to be of approximately Younger Dryas age (~12,850-11,700 calbp) (Broecker et al., 2010; Walker et al., 2009). The ARPP excavated seven square meters at the site and had several areas of controlled surface collection (Figure 2). We returned to the site in 2015 and 2017 to excavate an 8x2 meter block underwater, create a terrestrial profile of the adjacent island landform via an auger survey, and conduct a GPR survey on land and underwater (Smith, 2020). The artifact-bearing layer is approximately 5-10 cm thick and follows the paleotopography, sloping downwards from west to east, ranging from 2.6-3.8 mbd. It consists of a dense deposit of lithic artifacts, including diagnostic Suwannee points, and well-preserved faunal remains of both terrestrial and riverine fauna, including extinct and extirpated species. Fabric analysis and rare earth elemental analysis indicated that bones were deposited roughly contemporaneously with the cultural material on a sand stratum during a period when the Wacissa was not flowing, but the artifacts and bones were likely conflated on top of and within this paleosol as it was reworked by aolian activity during the late Pleistocene (Smith, 2020).

Freshwater availability has always been one of the driving forces of human settlement, so archaeological sites are very commonly located along river channels. This holds true for the submerged resources as well. Numerous sites recorded by Dr. Faught (Faught 2004) were located along the drowned river channels now submerged in the margins of the Gulf of Mexico. The landward areas of these river channels are rich in archaeological evidence dating from the very early Paleoindian tradition to the early part of the Middle Archaic (Thulman 2009; Halligan 2012; Dunbar 2016). At that time, the karst channels and sinkholes were the primary source for water for early humans (Thulman 2009).

Unfortunately for archaeological research, these offshore channels and sinkholes are poorly defined. Rather, they were typically mapped with single beam fathometers using widely-spaced sounding lines. Thus, the hydrographic charts of the region do not purport to locate relatively small features such as those of concern to archaeology. Further, the shallow depths of this area restrict the use of multi-beam fathometers to better define the bathymetric features of the area. A relatively new technology, LiDAR bathymetry using green lasers, offers a good solution to the development of high-resolution images of the submerged terrain in such areas. In a demonstration project of this technology, the Aucilla Research Institute, with a grant from the Division of Historic Resources, mapped portions of paleo-channels of the Aucilla and Econfina Rivers. The resulting data from that project offered an opportunity to identify and investigate numerous archaeological sites along the submerged channels. This project was completed in 2019.

Armed with knowledge of the geology of Page-Ladson and other sites, we have been conducting archaeological and geoarchaeological exploration in and around submerged sinkholes in northern Florida, especially the Aucilla, Wacissa, Santa Fe, Chipola, and Apalachicola Rivers (due to their known Paleoindian artifact densities. All of these rivers contain loose, displaced artifacts, but we need to find artifacts in primary context, where people left them 10,000-15,000 years ago. Therefore, we look in and around sinks that contain Paleoindian artifacts for preserved geological strata that date to the end of the last Ice Age. We first identify areas that have preserved sediments. We will study these layers by collecting geological cores and recording bank profiles. If the strata show evidence of having been deposited on dry land before the sink became submerged, they would have been available for people to live on and use. These are the sediments we are targeting, and we will collect samples to date these layers. After exploring numerous sinks, we target the best-preserved of these old land surfaces for exploratory excavations on land and underwater. The most promising of these sites will become the subject of large-scale excavations in future seasons. We are just beginning to understand the untapped potential of Florida’s rivers and streams. These systematic explorations will target intact sediments that contain or have the potential to contain artifacts dating from 10,000 to 15,000 years ago, will allow us to answer many of our questions about the First Americans.

In summer of 2022, ongoing research by PhD student Nick Bentley and MS student Amy Socha will be targeting sinks in the Aucilla Basin.

Dissertation

• Smith, Morgan F. (2019). Liquid Landscapes: What Underwater Prehistoric Sites in the Lower Southeast Tell Us about Climate Change, the Peopling of the Americas, and the Settlement of a New Continent. Texas A&M University.

Master's Theses

• Lyles, B.A. (2022) Lithic Analysis of Stone Tool Raw Material in Relation to Paleoindian and Early Archaic Settlement Patterns in the Aucilla River Basin

• Westman, T. M. (2022) Experiments on the Ability to Remotely Detect Submerged Precontact Archaeological Material Using a Sub-Bottom Profiler

• Mendez, T. (2021) Hog Island Spit Site (8LV00087) and Shoreline Mapping to Determine the Effects of Sea Level Rise on Site Destruction

• Soerfass, H. T. (2021) An Examination of Soil Cores and Environmental Reconstruction of the Pumpkin Key Shell Bearing Site (08CR25) in the Ten-Thousand Island Region of Southwest Florida

• Yarbrough, N. H. (2021) The Geoarchaeology of the Wakulla River Drainage Basin: An Exploratory Spatial Data Analysis and Synthesis

• Hougland, D. E. (2020) Pre-Contact Line Fishing Techniques along the Aucilla River, Northwest Florida Explored through the Use of Experimental Analysis

• Wilson, D. A. (2020) Examining Nomadic Foragers: Stable Isotope Analysis of Megafaunal Materials from Southeast United States Paleoindian Sites

• Cross, A. F. (2019) Bolen Projectile Point Use-Life: :An Expended Utility Study of Bolen Points from Early Archaic Florida

• Hollingshead, A. M. (2019) Geoarchaeological Investigations at Half Mile Rise Sink (8TA98)

• Sabin, J. E. (2019) Modeling Coastal Adaptation: Human-Environment Interactions in the Big Bend Region, Florida, Through The Pleistocene-Holocene Boundary

• Joy, S. A. (2018) The Trouble with the Curve: Reevaluating the Gulf of Mexico Sea-Level Curve

Undergraduate Honors Theses at FSU

• Bentley, McKenzie. (2020). Geochemical Characterizations of Early Ceramics in the Aucilla Watershed.

• Graumlich, Emma. (2020). Gastropod analysis for Paleoenvironments at Page-Ladson, Florida.

• Bentley, Nick. (2019). Hurricane Deposits in the Aucilla River.

• Jones, Eric. (2019). Lithic Analysis from Ryan-Harley.