Coastal Paleoindians in the Southeastern US? Envisioning Early People on the Now-Drowned Continental Shelves

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Human Behavioral Ecology at the Coastal Margins: Global Perspectives on Coastal & Maritime Adaptations" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Archaeological data have demonstrated that the Southeastern United States were occupied by at least 14,550 years ago, but evidence of these first people is limited to far inland and upland settings as more than half of Florida’s peninsula was drowned between 18,000-5500 cal BP. Recent models suggest that at least some of the first Americans may have arrived by coast and may have colonized the continent from the margins inward. Human behavioral ecology in combination with recently-refined paleoenvironmental reconstructions of the Florida Gulf Coast and the known pre-9500 cal BP archaeological record can be used to discuss when and where coastal opportunities for the first Floridians would have been greatest and discuss potential early coastal lifeways on the now-submerged continental shelf.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Human Behavioral Ecology at the Coastal Margins: Global Perspectives on Coastal & Maritime Adaptations   •
• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 24853