Windover Archaeological Site

The Windover Archaeological Site is an Early Archaic (6000 to 5000 BC) archaeological site found in Brevard County near Titusville, Florida, USA, on the central east coast of the state. Windover is a muck pond where skeletal remains of 168 individuals were found buried in the peat at the bottom of the pond. The skeletons were well preserved because of the characteristics of peat. In addition, remarkably well-preserved brain tissue has been recovered from many skulls from the site. DNA from the brain tissue has been sequenced. The collection of human skeletal remains and artifacts recovered from Windover Pond represent among the largest finds of each type from the Archaic Period.

Windover is a small pond, about .25 acres (1,000 m2) in area, that has held water continuously since sometime between 9000 and 8000 BC. It is next to the Atlantic coastal ridge about 5 miles (8.0 km) from Cape Canaveral. As the sea level was considerably lower 7,000 to 8,000 years ago than it is today, the pond originally sat above the water table, and was filled only by rainfall and runoff from the surrounding land. At that time the pond had a relatively thin layer of peat under a thin layer of water. The subsequent rise in sea level raised the local water table, and in more recent times the pond has been fed by groundwater as well as rainfall. In 1984 the pond had a thick layer of peat, with five strata described by the archaeologists who excavated the pond. The peat in the center of the pond was covered by 6 feet (1.8 m) of water.