Windover: Multidisciplinary Investigations of an Early Archaic Florida Cemetery

With respect to the bog burial tradition, Florida is unique, producing one of the largest inventories of North American skeletal remains older than 6,000 years. Near Titusville, Florida, in 1984, excavations began at the Windover archaeological site, the New World’s largest cemetery of this antiquity. This book is the first complete summary of the multiple investigations conducted there by archaeologists and specialists from across the nation and provides the first detailed overview of the population, and in particular the mortuary customs, from this Early Archaic era. The human remains uncovered at Windover are more numerous than at any site of its date and their preservation is truly phenomenal, making the site an unparalleled research opportunity. In addition to brain tissue, it houses the most complete inventory of organic artifacts that these early people manufactured and used, including a complex group of objects made from bone, antler, wood, and fabric seldom preserved in sites of this age and the largest collection of hand-woven materials from this period in the New World. With increasing controversy surrounding the disturbance of Native American human burial sites and legislation designed to restrict investigation of such places, Windover may be one of the last large, truly unique cemetery investigations and analyses that American archaeology will undertake.