Cutler Fossil Site

The presence of fossils in a sinkhole on the Charles Deering Estate was discovered in 1979 by people searching for wood to use as knife handles.

The discovery was not publicized until an archaeological excavation could be mounted in 1985, but in the meantime, an unauthorized collector had dug pits in the sinkhole, removed fossils and artifacts, and disturbed contexts.

The Deering Estate protested designation of the sinkhole as a "historically significant site", which would have protected the area from development.

[1][2][3] The Cutler Fossil Site is located in a sinkhole on the Miami Rock Ridge, a karstitic limestone formation running near the coast in Miami-Dade County.

The mix of species represented in the sinkhole suggests that during the late Pleistocene, it held standing water for at least part of the year, and was close to hardwood hammocks, pinelands, marshes, grasslands, and the sea coast.

Pleistocene megafauna represented in the sinkhole include tapirs, horses, Columbian mammoth, American mastodon, camels (Paleolama and Hemiauchenia), Bison antiquus, dire wolf, spectacled bears (Tremarctos floridanus and Tremarctos ornatus), Florida (or American) lion (Panthera atrox), a saber-toothed cat (Smilodon fatalis), and jaguar.

Most of the burned bones came from animals that remain extant in Florida, but some were from a mammoth, from the extinct armadillo Dasypus bellus, a paleolama, and a horse.

Some burned bones were also from either a coyote (a species that after dying out at the end of the Pleistocene, has returned to Florida only in the last century) or a domestic dog.