Florida's People During the Last Ice Age

Book excerpt: 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 Age documents 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.