Helen Blazes archaeological site

Last updated

The Helen Blazes archaeological site is an archaeological site near Lake Hell 'n Blazes in Brevard County, Florida, United States, which was excavated in the 1950s. Stone artifacts from Paleo-Indians (prior to 8000 BCE), the Archaic period (8000 BCE to 1000 BCE) and later cultures were found at the site. The Paleo-Indian artifacts included numerous Suwannee points. Paleo-Indian and Archaic artifacts included tools made from chert, which is not found locally and had to be imported from at least 100 miles (160 km) away. The Paleo-Indian artifacts were found in the same kind of deposits as were similar artifacts in Melbourne (10 miles (16 km) to the northeast) and Vero Beach (30 miles (48 km) to the south of Melbourne), both of which also yielded human and pleistocene animal fossils. [1]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paleo-Indians</span> Classification term given to the first peoples who entered the American continents

Paleo-Indians were the first peoples who entered and subsequently inhabited the Americas during the final glacial episodes of the late Pleistocene period. The prefix paleo- comes from the Ancient Greek adjective: παλαιός, romanized: palaiós, lit. 'old; ancient'. The term Paleo-Indians applies specifically to the lithic period in the Western Hemisphere and is distinct from the term Paleolithic.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lithic stage</span> Prehistoric period in the Americas

In the sequence of cultural stages first proposed for the archaeology of the Americas by Gordon Willey and Philip Phillips in 1958, the Lithic stage was the earliest period of human occupation in the Americas, as post-glacial hunter gatherers spread through the Americas. The stage derived its name from the first appearance of Lithic flaked stone tools. The term Paleo-Indian is an alternative, generally indicating much the same period.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Windover Archeological Site</span> Place in Florida listed on National Register of Historic Places

The Windover Archeological Site is a Middle Archaic archaeological site and National Historic Landmark in Brevard County near Titusville, Florida, United States on the central east coast of the state. Windover is a muck pond where skeletal remains of 168 individuals were found buried in the peat at the bottom of the pond. The skeletons were well preserved because of the peat. In addition, remarkably well-preserved brain tissue has been recovered from 91 skulls from the site. DNA from the brain tissue has been sequenced. The collection of human skeletal remains and artifacts recovered from Windover Pond represent among the largest finds of each type from the Archaic Period. It is considered one of the most important archeological sites ever excavated.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aucilla River</span> River in Florida and Georgia, United States

The Aucilla River rises in Brooks County, Georgia, USA, close to Thomasville, and passes through the Big Bend region of Florida, emptying into the Gulf of Mexico at Apalachee Bay. Some early maps called it the Ocilla River. It is 89 miles (143 km) long and has a drainage basin of 747 square miles (1,930 km2). Tributaries include the Little Aucilla and Wacissa Rivers. In Florida, the Aucilla River forms the eastern border of Jefferson County, separating it from Madison County on the northern part, and from Taylor County to the south.

The Belle Glade culture, or Okeechobee culture, is an archaeological culture that existed from as early as 1000 BCE until about 1700 CE in the area surrounding Lake Okeechobee and in the Kissimmee River valley in the Florida Peninsula.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stanfield-Worley Bluff Shelter</span> Historic site

The Stanfield-Worley Bluff Shelter, located on private property in Colbert County in northwestern Alabama, United States, is one of the most important prehistoric sites excavated in the state due to the archeological evidence deposited by the Paleo-Indians who once occupied the rock shelter. Lying in Sanderson Cove along a tributary of Cane Creek approximately seven miles (11 km) south of the Tennessee Valley, the shelter and the high bluffs of the surrounding valley provided a well-protected environment for the Native American occupants.

Southwestern archaeology is a branch of archaeology concerned with the Southwestern United States and Northwestern Mexico. This region was first occupied by hunter-gatherers, and thousands of years later by advanced civilizations, such as the Ancestral Puebloans, the Hohokam, and the Mogollon.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Melbourne Bone Bed</span> Pleistocene fossil and archaeological site in Florida

Melbourne Bone Bed is a paleontological site located at Crane Creek in Melbourne, in the U.S. state of Florida. This site contains fossils from the Late Pleistocene period 20,000 to 10,000 years before present. The fossils include extinct animals such as varieties of camels, dire wolves, Florida cave bears, giant armadillos, giant beavers, giant bison, giant ground sloths, mammoths, mastodons, saber-toothed cats and tapirs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Crane Creek (Melbourne, Florida)</span> River in Florida, United States

Crane Creek is a 3.3-mile-long (5.3 km) stream in Melbourne, Florida, United States. It is a tributary of the Indian River, with its mouth in the vicinity of Front Street.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Citico (Cherokee town)</span> Historic site near Chattanooga, Tennessee

Citico is a prehistoric and historic Native American site in Monroe County, Tennessee, in the southeastern United States. The site's namesake Cherokee village was the largest of the Overhill towns, housing an estimated Indian population of 1,000 by the mid-18th century. The Mississippian village that preceded the site's Cherokee occupation is believed to have been the village of "Satapo" visited by the Juan Pardo expedition in 1567.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thunderbird Archaeological District</span> Archaeological site in Virginia, United States

The Thunderbird Archaeological District, near Limeton, Virginia, is an archaeological district described as consisting of "three sites—Thunderbird Site, the Fifty Site, and the Fifty Bog—which provide a stratified cultural sequence spanning Paleo-Indian cultures through the end of Early Archaic times with scattered evidence of later occupation."

J&J Hunt Site (8JE740) is an inundated prehistoric archaeological site located 6 km off the coast of northwestern Florida. The site which was discovered in 1989 is located in 3.7 to 4.6 m of salt water in the Gulf of Mexico along the PaleoAucilla River. In prehistory the site had at least two different occupations: a Late Paleoindian-Early Archaic and Middle Archaic. The J&J Hunt site was a major focus of the PaleoAucilla Prehistory Project conducted by Michael K. Faught.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Prehistory of Ohio</span>

Prehistory of Ohio provides an overview of the activities that occurred prior to Ohio's recorded history. The ancient hunters, Paleo-Indians, descended from humans that crossed the Bering Strait. There is evidence of Paleo-Indians in Ohio, who were hunter-gatherers that ranged widely over land to hunt large game. For instance, mastodon bones were found at the Burning Tree Mastodon site that showed that it had been butchered. Clovis points have been found that indicate interaction with other groups and hunted large game. The Paleo Crossing site and Nobles Pond site provide evidence that groups interacted with one another. The Paleo-Indian's diet included fish, small game, and nuts and berries that gathered. They lived in simple shelters made of wood and bark or hides. Canoes were created by digging out trees with granite axes.

The indigenous peoples of Florida lived in what is now known as Florida for more than 12,000 years before the time of first contact with Europeans. However, the indigenous Floridians living east of the Apalachicola River had largely died out by the early 18th century. Some Apalachees migrated to Louisiana, where their descendants now live; some were taken to Cuba and Mexico by the Spanish in the 18th century, and a few may have been absorbed into the Seminole and Miccosukee tribes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Edward Ball Wakulla Springs State Park</span> State Park near Tallahassee, Florida

Edward Ball Wakulla Springs State Park is a Florida State Park in Wakulla County, Florida, United States. This 6,000 acre (24 km2) wildlife sanctuary, located south of Tallahassee, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and designated a National Natural Landmark.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jones-Miller Bison Kill Site</span>

The Jones-Miller Bison Kill Site, located in northeast Colorado, was a Paleo-Indian site where Bison antiquus were killed using a game drive system and butchered. Hell Gap complex bones and tools artifacts at the site are carbon dated from about ca. 8000-8050 BC.

Hell Gap is a deeply stratified archaeological site located in the Great Plains of eastern Wyoming, approximately thirteen miles north of Guernsey, where an abundant amount of Paleoindian and Archaic artifacts have been found and excavated since 1959. This site has had an important impact on North American archaeology because of the large quantity and breadth of prehistoric Paleoindian and Archaic period artifacts and cultures it encompasses. It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 2016.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Broster</span>

John Bertram Broster is an American archaeologist formerly serving as the Prehistoric Archeological Supervisor at the Tennessee Division of Archaeology, Department of Environment and Conservation. He is best known for his work on the Paleoindian period of the American Southwest and Southeast, and has published some 38 book chapters and journal articles on the subject.

The Anzick site (24PA506), located adjacent to Flathead Creek, a tributary of the Shields River in Wilsall, Park County, Montana, United States, is the only known Clovis burial site in the New World. The term "Clovis" is used by archaeologists to define one of the New World's earliest hunter-gatherer cultures and is named after the site near Clovis, New Mexico, where human artifacts were found associated with the procurement and processing of mammoth and other large and small fauna.

The Quad site is a series of Paleoindian sites and localities in Limestone County near Decatur, Alabama. It was first reported by Frank Soday in 1954, and later findings were also documented by James Cambron, David Hulse and Joe Wright and Cambron and Hulse. The Quad Locale can seldom be viewed at current lake levels, even during normal winter pool, due to extensive erosion, but is considered one of the most important and well known Paleoindian sites in the Southeastern United States.

References

  1. A., Purdy, Barbara (2008). Florida's people during the last ice age. Gainesville: University Press of Florida. ISBN   9780813032047. OCLC   154677915.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)

Further reading