Graph showing Carbon-14 dating of Newnan's Lake canoes. (Click on the image for a larger version.)

    Of the 87 canoes discovered in the bottom of Newnan's Lake, archaeologists documented and obtained radiocarbon dates for 53. Radiocarbon dating revealed that the canoes range in age from 500 to 5,000 years old. Thirty-six of the 53 canoes, nearly 70%, are between 3,000 and 5,000 years old. These 36 canoes, along with four others between 2,300 and 2,700 years old, date to the Late Archaic Period (3,000 B.C. - 500 B.C.), an archaeological period characterized by a distinctive fiber-tempered pottery and a hunting and gathering way of life. The remaining 12 documented canoes fall between 500 and 1300 years old, when pottery manufacture is more prevalent. The 1,000-year gap in canoes dating between 2,300 and 1,300 years old is unexplained, but may indicate no habitation near this part of Newnan's Lake during that time. The broad range of dates for the canoes demonstrates that a wonderfully long tradition of canoe manufacture and use that extends from 5,000 years ago to the present. Florida's rich wetland environments offered opportunities for collecting food and for transportation and trade. The canoe was especially important for Native Americans in many parts of North America, because the continent had neither wheeled vehicles nor draft animals prior to European contact.

    The chart shows calibrated radiocarbon date ranges for 52 canoes. Each canoe is represented by two adjacent bars, and the canoes are ordered from youngest to oldest. The left bar represents the minimum of the age range and the right bar represents the maximum. The range is two standard deviations from the mean, so a canoe has a 95% probability of dating within the range. These are calibrated dates, fitted to the radiocarbon curve created from dating tree ring samples of known age.