EARLY HUMAN OCCUPATION AND ENVIRONMENTAL-CHANGE IN NORTHWESTERN FLORIDA

This paper is concerned with the relationship between culture and envi ronment From the end of the Pleistocene to the middle of the Holocene in the karst controlled geologic regime of Northwestern Florida. Chang ing environmental conditions resulting from climatic oscillations and glacially derived sea level rise surely affected human settlement patt erns and subsistence procurement strategies. In this paper, we present a synopsis of local palynological, stratigraphic, sea level and radio carbon data and attempt to correlate associated changes in settlement strategies from the latest Pleistocene to about 5000 yr BP,(1) when th e seas attained today's levels. (C) 1998 INQUA/Elsevier Science Ltd. A ll rights reserved.