No ordinary bog

n exhibit at the Brevard Museum of History and Natural Science recreates the method the people of Windover used to bury their dead underwater. TANAIYA AUBRIE

Ancient burials in Titusville helped rewrite human history

Archaeologists have an audience as they work at the Windover Dig in Titusville. Brevard Historical Commission Archives

This is a story of a woman who ate fish and berries for her last meal, of a backhoe operator who stumbled upon some intriguing, round rocks in Titusville, of a developer who exhibited the right stuff and of a young archaeologist who witnessed the discovery of the century, all in a peat bog that helped deliver a window into the past. 

It was 1982 and backhoe operator Steve Vanderjagt was clearing mucky land that was to be part of the new Windover Farms subdivision, when he happened upon what looked like a cantaloupe-sized rock. He instantly knew this was no regular rock. 

“For one thing, there are no round rocks in Florida,” said Ben Rader, coordinator of the Brevard Museum of History and Natural Science in Cocoa, home of the permanent exhibition, The People of Windover.

Rocks also don’t look back at you — but the object Vanderjagt found did. In an “oh, s___” moment, Vanderjagt realized this was no rock but, rather, a human skull. Even weirder was the fact that there seemed to be a number of those round “rocks” scattered around, along with a bunch of what he originally thought were sticks. They turned out to be human bones. 

The construction worker had stumbled upon a cemetery — and a really, really, really old one — as he and his boss, developer Jim Swann, would eventually discover with the help of Florida State University archaeologists.

The discovery of skeletal remains figures prominently in the nightmare-o-meter of developers, but Swann never hesitated to do the right thing.

“Jim Swann could have made the choice to quietly cover the bones and proceed with construction of his housing development and no one would have been the wiser,” noted Ben Brotemarkle in the Journal of the Brevard 

Historical Commission.

Swann halted construction and contacted the late Glen Doran, then a young Florida State University researcher who would become lead archaeologist at a series of digs that took place from 1984 to 1986. During that time — and with Swann’s donation of material, money and machinery — Doran and the team would come face to face with 168 residents who lived and died in the Titusville area about 7,000 to 8,000 years ago. Among them was a woman whose body had been so well preserved that scientists could detect what she had eaten just before she died. She had lived 2,000 years before the Great Pyramids of Egypt. For an archaeologist, it was the equivalent of winning the lottery. 

“Our investigations at Windover were a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” wrote Doran in 2002.

FOR PEAT’S SAKE

Artist Brian Owens used forensic reconstruction techniques to create the Windover Woman sculpture at the Brevard Museum of History and Natural Science. TANAIYA AUBRIE

It was a difficult site because, while peat provides an environment that significantly protects bones and artifacts from decay, the clay-like substance was difficult to carefully excavate. Plus, once the bones were exposed to the air, decomposition began — it was imperative that the peat remain moist. So Doran and fellow archaeologist Dave Dickel designed a de-mucking system that removed enough water to allow excavation but still kept the peat moist enough to protect the skeletons and artifacts. 

In her book, Life and Death at Windover,  bioarchaeologist Dr. Rachel Wentz — who conducted her doctoral research on the human remains at Windover — noted that “the excellent preservation at Windover was the result of chemistry and luck. The dark peats within the base of the pond that held the remains provided the perfect environment for the preservation of skeletal tissue: a neutral pH and very little oxygen. It is this remarkable preservation that has enabled a glimpse into the health and history of each individual.”

In this mortuary pond, each of the bodies had been carefully arranged in a fetal position inside a tripod made from branches. Wooden stakes, driven through the cloth buried with the bodies, would anchor the remains and keep them submerged. 

“The deceased were wrapped in what archaeologists believe is the oldest existing woven fabric in the world,” Brotemarkle wrote. 

Utilitarian and ornamental items alike were buried with the bodies. A young woman wore three bead necklaces. A teen was buried with a bottle gourd and an oak bowl by her side. Atlatls — spear-throwing tools to enhance accuracy and distance — were interred with the hunters, perhaps to give them an eternal edge during hunts in the afterlife. Thanks to the anaerobic environment, archaeologists were able to discover intact brain matter in 91 of the skulls. 

Wentz notes that the dating of plant remains established that the Windover site was used primarily in late summer and early fall, for approximately a thousand years. Generation after generation buried their dead at Windover.

“Where they were living during other times of the year and where they were burying their dead during that time is unknown,” Wentz wrote. 

“Perhaps they returned to the area because of the significance of the pond. Its continued use may have been due to its close proximity to favorable hunting territory. We will never know why they chose this pond. All we can affirm is its recurring ceremonial use as a sacred site for the internment of the dead.”

A recreation at the Brevard Museum of History and Natural Science depicts how archaeologists found the skeletal remains. TANAIYA AUBRIE

Digging at the Windover Archaeological Site in Titusville required partial draining of the bogs that served as underwater burial grounds of ancient people. Brevard Historical Commission Archives

WITH CARE

Studies about the Windover Site continued long after the dig was shut down. Years later, a study of DNA extracted from skeletal remains disclosed that the people of Windover had migrated to North America from Asia yet were not related to any living Native American tribes. 

When they lived here, more than 7,000 years ago, the Everglades and Lake Okeechobee were a couple of thousand years away from being formed. Yet these early folks were not that much different than us. They used tools to make life easier and enjoyed the bounty of the land and sea around them. They suffered from the same maladies that still plague us: arthritis, infections, dental disease, trauma, poor nutrition. They cared for their young, their sick, their frail. They sought whatever medicine they could find to help them heal. The stomach area of several of the remains contained plant matter such as grapes, known to have pain-relieving properties. They mourned their dead and buried them with love.

“The care they exhibited in death was possibly an extension of the care they showed each other in life,” Wentz wrote. 

After work had already stopped at the Windover site, federal and state laws were enacted to protect the human remains and funerary objects of indigenous people. The pond, now a protected archaeological site, has reverted to its natural state. All the hubbub of the archaeological dig is long gone. There is peace here for the dead who remain embraced by the water for eternity, as well as for the living who stand at the shore, connected by a place to the presence of a long-gone people.

The cloth found among the skeletal remains at the Windover Archaeological Site enabled archaeologists to learn how ancient people fashioned textiles. TANAIYA AUBRIE

FIND OUT MORE

Rachel Wentz’s book Life and Death at Windover is available from the Brevard Public Library System, rachelwentzbooks.com and at Amazon.

The People of Windover, a permanent exhibition on the Windover site, can be seen at the Brevard Museum of History and Natural Science, 2201 Michigan Ave., adjacent to the Cocoa campus of Eastern Florida State College. The exhibit features Windover Woman, a bust created by artist Brian Owens using forensic reconstruction techniques, a recreation of a burial site and historical artifacts. The museum is open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays. Admission is free. 

For more information, visit brevard-museum.com or call 321-632-1830.

See the original article in print publication