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The Division
of Marine Affairs manages an underwater archeological and ecological
preserve at Little Salt Spring, in North Port, a site located in southern
Sarasota County, Florida about 5 miles from the Gulf of Mexico. Donated
to the University in 1982, the spring (left) is surrounded by undisturbed
native hardwood hammock containing several rare and endangered plant and
animal species.
During early prehistoric times (12,000-7,000 years ago) the sinkhole was an oasis in the peninsula that attracted seasonal hunters and gatherers. The site has produced the second-oldest dated artifact ever found in the southeast U.S. a sharpened wooden stake some 12,000 years old. Little Salt Spring contains some of the oldest cultural remains in Florida. The unique anoxic water that fills most of the sinkhole (below 5 meters' depth) has preserved a great range of organic materials including wood, textile fragments, hair, skin and brain tissue dating back to the Late Paleoindian and Early Archaic stages of Florida's prehistory, ca. 9,500 - 7,000 radiocarbon years ago. Archaeological remains exist both in the spring basin and the "26 meter ledge", a natural cavern at that depth below the spring surface. (The 12,000 year old stick was found here.) |
