Florida Native American Heritage Trail - (Page 28) Southwest Region (continued) Southwest Florida Museum of History The Mound House Fort Myers, Lee County 239.332.5955 www.cityftmyers.com/museum/about.aspx Fort Myers Beach, Lee County 239.765.0865 www.moundhouse.org Olde Marco Museum Marco Island, Collier County 239.394.6917 www.themihs.org/index.htm Housed in the former Atlantic Coastline Railroad depot, this museum tells the Native American heritage of the region in exhibits portraying the first people who arrived 12,000 years ago, as well as the Calusa and Seminoles. e oldest standing structure on Fort Myers Beach sits on the crest of a Calusa shell mound overlooking Estero Bay. Walk inside the mound to view interspersed layers of shell and earth used to construct the site from 2,000 to 1,200 years ago. e Calusa culture, dominant in the area from 2,000 to 500 years ago, is the premier exhibit at this museum. Some of the most important finds in North American pre-European archaeology are depicted in photographs, including finds from the Key Marco Site. In 1895-1896, archaeologist Frank Hamilton Cushing excavated the Key Marco Site and recovered over 1,000 wooden artifacts, the most famous of which is a carving of a cat-like animal. is amazing find ensured this site’s place as among the most famous in the southeast. Fort Center, Fisheating Creek Wildlife Management Area Moore Haven, Glades County 561.625.5122 www.floridaconservation.org/recreation/ fisheating_creek/default.asp Aerial photograph of Little Salt Spring. (Photographed by Peter Masa. Image courtesy of John Gifford) Little Salt Spring: Oasis of Information Little Salt Spring is a unique archaeological resource. Not only is it one of the oldest in North America, it contains organic remains of plants, animals, and people that are extremely well preserved. Around a small sink hole in present-day Sarasota County, people continuously used the site from 12,000 to 5,000 years ago, when Florida was much drier. They camped in the upper bowl of the hourglass-shaped sinkhole, pounding stakes into the sides of the shaft to lower ropes to the water surface 90 feet below ground level. Below a depth of 15 feet the water that flows up from Florida’s underground aquifer contains no dissolved oxygen. As a result, organic material such as bone and wood will never decay. Here 20thcentury divers have excavated a giant turtle with a 12,000-year-old wooden stake through its shell and the remains of a cook fire, a 9,000year-old oak boomerang-like object and a host of artifacts from 6,000-yearold burials, including two beautiful greenstone pendants. Now owned by the University of Miami, the 110-acre wooded preserve around the sinkhole is an island in a sea of streets, homes, schools, and golf courses. Excerpted from a report by Bill Dudley and provided by John Gifford with funding from the Florida Dept. of State, Div. of Cultural Affairs and produced by the Florida Humanities Council on the web at: www.flahum.org Used as a location for a small fort during the Second and ird Seminole War, archaeological remains at Fort Center consist of mounds, ponds, circular ditches, and linear embankments built about 2,000 years ago. At the site, bundles of human remains were found along with the remnants of a wooden platform decorated with wooden carvings of wildlife including life-size cats, a bear, foxes, eagles, and wading birds. Ortona Site, Indian Mound Park Moore Haven, Glades County 863.946.0440 28 First documented during a survey in 1839, unusual earthworks near the Caloosahatchee River were first believed to be fortifications built by Europeans. Archaeological investigations determined that the earthworks are in fact the remains of a canal system dating to about 1,700 years ago, demonstrating that the Indians engineered large irrigation projects. An exhibit and trail interpret the site. http://www.themihs.org/ http://www.moundhouse.org http://www.cityftmyers.com/museum/about.aspx http://www.floridaconservation.org/recreation/fisheating_creek/default.asp http://www.flahum.org
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