Windover Bog, Florida, US

Well preserved native bog cemetery (8,000 years old)

(originally posted 8/1/2020)

Spent a couple days learning about the Windover Bog site in Florida near the Space Coast that was first discovered in 1982.  From 8 to 7 thousand years ago, it was used as a burial site for a Native American tribe.  91 of the 168 skeletons found there are extremely well preserved and some even had brain matter preserved inside their skulls.  There’s also the oldest evidence of textiles in North America.  The face of one of the women buried there was recreated and put on display in a museum.  

The findings detail an elaborate burial ceremony and a window on life from those times.  The hunter gatherers would move around the area, but then come to this specific spot to bury their dead.  They wrapped their bodies in a cloth, carried them on wooden platforms into the marsh.  They would then set the bodies down and plunge wooden stakes that would hold the bodies and platforms under water and prevent them from rising back up.  One can easily imagine it being as somber an occasion of any modern day funeral, all those thousands of years ago.  This was a tradition held by a single tribe that lasted in this one place for over a thousand years, as those buried there were found to be closely related to each other.

The bodies showed a general peaceful life, with one apparent exception though.  Forensic scientists studied the events surrounding an apparent murder victim, who had a spear tip lodged in his bone and was decapitated, but then buried with care along with his kin.

Some other notable people who were buried here include a 15 year old boy who had spina bifida.  Another woman was in her 70s and likely died of abscesses.  One woman last ate elderberries, holly, and nightshade based on their remains where her stomach would have been.  Bones indicate they also ate ate white-tailed deer, raccoon, opossum, birds, fish and shellfish.

From the brain matter, they were able to perform one of the earliest dna extractions from someone from that long ago.  There was a documentary that claimed that the dna did not resemble any known native american groups and instead resembled European DNA.  This fit in with a hypothesis at the time that said that the Clovis people in North America could have entered the continent from Europe, based on the idea that the clovis points resembled points that the Solutrean population who lived in France during the Ice Age, and may thus be descended from the Solutreans.  This hypothesis has fallen out of scientific favor in more recent times, with the similarity in point structures being chalked up to coincidence and convergeant technology due to a similar life style, and similarity in DNA structure being chalked up to the fact that the hunter gatherers of Europe and those in North America shared a common ancestor in Eurasia a long time ago before the populations split off, with Europeans heading west to Europe, and Native Americans heading east through Alaska.  The hypothesis is still promoted by various white supremacist groups and other people who like the idea or are convinced by it though. I would imagine it would help assuage White guilt over taking over the Native American lands if it were shown that Europeans were here first for one thing, and help justify it.  The documentary that mentioned European similarities has since been reworked to indicate they found relations to Native Americans.  

I have not seen any scientific papers that suggests the people at the bog were from Europe, nor any that refute this (though maybe they exist), with most the arguments both ways I could find on the internet appearing on blogs and message boards.  I’ll choose to trust the scientists on this.  If modern studies find evidence of prehistoric European colonialization, I’m sure political correctness wouldn’t be enough to damper the scientists’ enthusiasm.  The current scientific consensus is that the dna showed the same ancestry as other native american groups (from asia), though I don’t think they’ve been tied to a particular living tribe. 

Some proponents of the European origin theory smell a scientific conspiracy that these bones and many others from this time have been reburied per the Native Americans’ wishes and are no longer available for further study.  It’s for cultural and spiritual reasons though and a matter of dignity.  There have been other instances of scientists respectfully working with the Native Americans to together learn about their past.  I hope we can find out as much possible while respecting natives’ wishes.