Florida's People During the Last Ice Age

by Purdy, Barbara A.

• ISBN13: 9780813032047
• ISBN10: 0813032040
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2008-04-06
• Publisher: Univ Pr of Florida

Summary

The time and place of the arrival of the first humans in the Western Hemisphere and their spread throughout the Americas has been a fiercely debated issue for decades.Florida's People During the Last Ice Agedocuments the indisputable evidence of the spread of human populations into Florida nearly 14,000 years ago. Other syntheses of Florida archaeology tend to gloss over the Paleoindian period. Barbara Purdy is the first to offer, in a single work, a summary of more than one hundred years of research on Florida's Paleoindian occupation. She also provides dates, radiocarbon information, and thorough, succinct overviews of the principal known archaeological sites for this era. No other source offers such unique site summaries; indeed some are published here for the first time anywhere. Purdy is the first to present all the dates, radiocarbon and other, for the earliest archaeological sites in Florida in a single work. In discussing the still unresolved issue of whether people were in the Western Hemisphere, particularly Florida, at an even earlier date, she recommends new technologies and expertise that could shed light on this enduring mystery.

Author Biography

Barbara A. Purdy is professor emerita of anthropology at the University of Florida and curator emerita in archaeology at the Florida Museum of Natural History.

Table of Contents

List of Figures	p. xi
Foreword	p. xv
Preface	p. xvii
Acknowledgments	p. xix
Introduction	p. 1
Reports of Possible Ice Age Human Presence in Florida, 1850-1950	p. 5
Early Paleoindian Period in Florida, ca. 14,000 Years Ago	p. 44
Were People in Florida Before the Paleoindians?	p. 105
A Rapidly Deteriorating Trail of Evidence	p. 116
Summary and Recommendations	p. 120
Bibliography	p. 123
Index	p. 131
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.