The Jefferson County, Florida paleontological sites are assemblages of Mid-Miocene to Late Pleistocene vertebrates from Jefferson County, Florida, United States.
The Jefferson County, Florida paleontological sites are assemblages of Mid-Miocene to Late Pleistocene vertebrates from Jefferson County, Florida, United States.
Era : Neogene
Period : Miocene to Pleistocene, ~23.03 Mya—11,000 years ago. (calculates to a period of approximately 22.92 million years).
Faunal stage : Clarendonian through early Rancholabrean
Ashville site (Miocene) Time period: ~13.5—12.7 Mya. [1]
Aucilla River site (Pleistocene) Time period: ~126,000—11,000 years ago. The Aucilla site specimens were discovered by amateur paleontologist Dr. Richard Ohmes of Bremerton, Washington in 1969. [2]
Coordinates: 30°06′N83°54′W / 30.1°N 83.9°W
Wacissa River site (Pleistocene) Time period: ~126,000—11,000 years ago. Collected by R. Alexon, B. Mathen, R. Gingery in October 1981; in shallow water. Specimens reposited in the Florida Museum of Natural History. [3]
Coordinates: 30°24′N83°54′W / 30.4°N 83.9°W
Ashland site = ASH. Aucilla River site = ARS. Wacissa River site = WRS.
Jefferson County is a county located in the Big Bend region in the northern part of the U.S. state of Florida. As of the 2020 census, the population was 14,510. Its county seat is Monticello. Jefferson County is part of the Tallahassee, FL Metropolitan Statistical Area but is the 3rd most rural county in Florida. There are no traffic signals within the entire county.
The Page–Ladson archaeological and paleontological site (8JE591) is a deep sinkhole in the bed of the karstic Aucilla River that has stratified deposits of late Pleistocene and early Holocene animal bones and human artifacts. The site was the first pre-Clovis site discovered in southeastern North America; radiocarbon evidence suggests that the site dates from 14,200 to 14,550 BP(12,250 to 12,600 BCE). These dates are roughly 1,000 to 1,500 years before the advent of the Clovis culture. Early dates for Page–Ladson challenge theories that humans quickly decimated large game populations in the area once they arrived.
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.
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The Wacissa River is a large, spring-fed stream located in south-central Jefferson County, Florida. Its headwaters are located about a mile south of the town of Wacissa, where the river emerges crystal clear from a group of large limestone springs. From its headsprings, the river flows approximately 12 miles (19 km) south through a broad cypress swamp before breaking into numerous braided channels which join the Aucilla River a few miles further south. The river is managed by the Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission as part of the Aucilla Wildlife Management Area, and has been declared an Outstanding Florida Waterway by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection.
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 the present. The fossils include extinct animals such as varieties of llamas, dire wolves, Florida cave bears, giant armadillos, giant beavers, giant bison, giant ground sloths, mammoths, mastodons, saber-toothed cats, and tapirs.
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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.
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Aucilla Wildlife Management Area conserves 50,549 acres of hydric hammock, mesic flatwoods, upland forest, and spring-run river twelve miles southeast of Tallahassee in Jefferson and Taylor Counties in Florida.