Florida Historical Markers Programs - Marker Detail

Description: Discovered by accident in 1982, the Windover site is a burial place of Early Native Americans who inhabited this region 7,000 to 8,000 years ago. The burials were placed underwater in the peat of the shallow pond. This peat helped to preserve normally perishable artifacts and human tissues. The site contains the largest skeletal sample in the New World and the oldest bottle gourd found north of Mexico, two features that add to its significance. It also includes the largest and most complex sample of early textiles in the New World, a pollen record from the end of the Pleistocene to Recent Eras and recovery of some of the oldest DNA from brain tissue and bone. The remarkable state of preservation has allowed archaeologists to reconstruct some of the earliest New World diets based on contents from their stomachs and on scientific analysis. The site has produced the largest and most complex textile collection ever recovered from an Early Archaic period site. It also yielded a remarkable organic artifact inventory including wood and fibers. Archaeologists from Florida State University were among those who explored the Windover site.