Exploring the Submerged New World on R/V Weatherbird II between 20110808 and 20110818

Underwater archaeologists, led by James Adovasio and Andy
Hemmings of Mercyhurst College, dove at four sites that were first visited in
2009. At these locations, electronically documented intact river channel
features of the Pleistocene Suwannee River are now filled with multiple layers
of sediment. These sites are covered by 40 to 130 feet of ocean water and are
located 50 to 125 miles offshore of the modern Gulf Coast of Florida northwest
of Tampa or southeast of Tallahassee. The three shallower sites have bedrock
exposed on the seafloor that forms one side of the buried channel. The bedrock
at each of these sites is low grade knappable toolstone that could have been
used for tool making. The deepest site, Thor’s Elbow, is the intersection of the
ancient Suwannee and another river where they expected to find more knappable
bedrock buried under the modern surface. At each of these sites divers hoped to
locate prehistoric human made artifacts, bones of Pleistocene animals, such as
the mastodon, and perhaps datable organic material such as pieces of wood. Any
such finds would indicate that the now inundated Pleistocene landscape of
Florida in the Gulf of Mexico is still preserved, accessible to archaeologists,
and contains prehistoric evidence of the use of this landscape by people and
animals alive at the end of the last Ice Age.