PALEOINDIAN AFFINITIES FOR COASTAL LANDSCAPES IN NORTHWEST FLORIDA, USA

Geoarchaeological investigations on and around Eglin Air Force base, located adjacent to the coast of Northwest Florida, have addressed the full array of landforms, from the aeolian dunes and the alluvial Citronelle Formation (Neogene) of the uplands, alluvial terraces of the Yellow River, marine terrace system ranging from 2m to 21m amsl (e.g., Pamlico and Silver Bluff) to the barrier island complex (Santa Rosa Island). Our primary goal was one of developing a landscape-distribution model for sites containing evidence of the first occupants within the area (Paleoindian-Early Archaic). The earliest sites discovered contained the diagnostic Kirk Corner-notched points and dated to about 11-11.3k cal yrs BP. Sites cluster in three modern landscape settings: uplands adjacent to streams and steepheads (headwater ravines), within the dune-mantled Silver Bluff marine terrace (2-3m amsl) expressed along Choctawhatchee Bay, and on terraces of the Yellow River, which drains the northern part of the study area. Having formed after about 7ka, Santa Rosa Island produced none of the early cultural materials. Choctawhatchee Bay, created by the barrier island complex, did not exist in in the Paleoindian-Early Archaic period, i.e., the shoreline was 10s of km south, and sea level was at least 25m lower. So, the early-Holocene Choctawhatchee “Bayou,” with a present water depth of about 12m, was a riverine environment presumably well-suited to early occupation, evidence of which is yet unrealized; core and radiocarbon data indicate, however, that 3-6m of organic-rich sediment have accumulated in the bay since only about 7.5ka. The major feature of paleoenvironmental reconstructions, developed from pollen records derived at four sites, was the regionally-documented pine rise about 9k cal yrs BP, which indicated a transition to a more mesic, but increasingly seasonal precipitation regime. Prior to the pine rise, the Paleoindian and Early Archaic inhabitants would have experienced a greater biotic diversity.