An archaeologist and recipient of numerous awards, Dr. R. Christopher Goodwin is the founder and CEO of R. Christopher Goodwin & Associates, Inc., a firm that performs archaeological and historical surveys for government projects and private companies requiring government permitting. Dr. Goodwin, who holds a PhD, is considered an authority on climate change.

1. DISCOVERING A SITE AFFECTED BY
ANCIENT CLIMATE CHANGE
Dr. R. Christopher Goodwin, PhD

2. INTRODUCTION
 An archaeologist and recipient of numerous awards, Dr. R.
Christopher Goodwin is the founder and CEO of R.
Christopher Goodwin & Associates, Inc., a firm that performs
archaeological and historical surveys for government projects
and private companies requiring government permitting. Dr.
Goodwin, who holds a PhD, is considered an authority on
climate change.
In one of the firm’s recent surveys for a natural gas pipeline
across north Florida, the company's archaeologists unearthed
several sites radiocarbon dated between 11,000 and 12,000
years old, just after the conclusion of the last Ice Age, a period
characterized by sudden climate change. Through analysis of
the soil stratification, tools, animal blood residue, and pollen
data, the company was able to reconstruct how life transpired
during this period.

3. ANCIENT CLIMATE CHANGE
 Parts of the coastal Florida area were savannah-like and were
home to a population of large bison. Those bison were hunted
by groups of people now characterized as Paleo-Indians, the
descendants of the first humans in the New World. As
temperatures rose, the area became drier, the old growth
forests of evergreens similar to those in Canada today died
off, and the animal population changed, and smaller mammals
such as deer and rabbits moved in to fill the new habitats.
The descendants of the first Paleo-Indians adapted to the
profound climatic changes that occurred by fundamentally
altering their hunting tools. Their stone tool kit changed from
variants of the Clovis projectile point tradition used to thrust
spears into large animals to dart points that could be hurled
using atlatls or spear throwers at the much swifter smaller
prey.