With a PhD in archaeology, Dr. R. Christopher Goodwin serves as the president, chief executive officer, and director of research at R. Christopher Goodwin & Associates, Inc. The involvement of Dr. R. Christopher Goodwin’s firm in cultural resources surveys for pipeline projects has led to numerous important archaeological discoveries. For example, the Goodwin team discovered artifacts dating from the end of the last Ice Age during a survey for a pipeline corridor on the Gulf Coast in Florida.
Artifacts uncovered at the Gulf Coast site belonged to a band of people known generically as Paleo-Indians; they inhabited the area at the end of the Pleistocene era after about 12,500 years ago. At that time, Florida’s coastal zone included forests very similar to those found in the vicinity of Montreal, Canada today. Shoreward of that forest type, the coastal plain featured a prairie like environment with savanna grasses like those of the historic Great Plains. Paleo-Indians there hunted bison that migrated across that prairie-like savanna before climate changes in the form of rapidly warming temperatures altered the environment. These changes forced the Paleo-Indians to shift their hunting focus to deer, rabbit, and other quick-moving animals.
The survey team from R. Christopher Goodwin & Associates discovered dart points at the site that show the extensive changes that had to be made to the hunting tool kike shortly after the end of the last Ice Age, when the climate warmed rapidly. While dart points were used as thrusting implements to spear bison, their rapid exit from the area witnessed the emergence of faster prey that required development of hunting weapons that could be thrown using an atlatl - a prehistoric spear thrower.
Artifacts uncovered at the Gulf Coast site belonged to a band of people known generically as Paleo-Indians; they inhabited the area at the end of the Pleistocene era after about 12,500 years ago. At that time, Florida’s coastal zone included forests very similar to those found in the vicinity of Montreal, Canada today. Shoreward of that forest type, the coastal plain featured a prairie like environment with savanna grasses like those of the historic Great Plains. Paleo-Indians there hunted bison that migrated across that prairie-like savanna before climate changes in the form of rapidly warming temperatures altered the environment. These changes forced the Paleo-Indians to shift their hunting focus to deer, rabbit, and other quick-moving animals.
The survey team from R. Christopher Goodwin & Associates discovered dart points at the site that show the extensive changes that had to be made to the hunting tool kike shortly after the end of the last Ice Age, when the climate warmed rapidly. While dart points were used as thrusting implements to spear bison, their rapid exit from the area witnessed the emergence of faster prey that required development of hunting weapons that could be thrown using an atlatl - a prehistoric spear thrower.