How long have humans lived in Southwest Florida?

How long have humans lived in Southwest Florida?



Dr. John Gifford, marine archaeologist with the University of Miami, holds a giant tortoise shell fossil excavated from Little Salt Spring in North Port. (Jan. 5, 2012) (Herald-Tribune staff photo by Dan Wagner)
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By Kate Spinner



Published: Monday, January 9, 2012 at 5:33 p.m.

Last Modified: Monday, January 9, 2012 at 5:33 p.m.


NORTH PORT - From 12,000 to 13,000 years ago, early humans may have lived in Southwest Florida, among mammoths and saber-tooth tigers. If they did, the evidence of their lives — arrows, spears or markings on shell and bone — is likely to lie 90 feet beneath the watery surface of Little Salt Spring.



John Gifford, a marine archaeology professor at the University of Miami, hopes that evidence — the first of its kind in Florida — rises to the surface later this year.

Last summer, he and divers from the Florida Aquarium uncovered the undersides of two giant land tortoises resting next to each other. Their unusual position suggests human involvement.

If markings, other artifacts and carbon dating prove that humans butchered the tortoises 12,000 years ago or earlier, it would be an archaeological breakthrough.

"That actually would represent the oldest traces of human activity in the Southeast United States," Gifford said.

Circumstantial evidence points to human activity there during the time of the mammoths, but Gifford has yet to find hard proof.

A library of artifacts, tucked in plastic bags and stored in a wall of wooden pull-out shelves and metal cabinets cramps Gifford's aged research trailer near the spring. There are remains of mammoths, saber tooth tigers and giant tortoises, but none so far show signs of human interaction.

"What we need to find is an absolutely incontrovertible artifact that is directly in the remains of the tortoises," Gifford said. Since 1992, Gifford and his students and colleagues have collected 5,000 artifacts from the spring. None of the human tools found so far date back more than 10,000 years.
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