2000-044 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

CI 40 NPS Form 10.900-a lel United States Department of the Interior National Park Service National register of Historic Places Continuation Sheet OMB Approval No. 1024-0016 Section number H Page ,I, Indian River Narrows Cultural Resource District Summary of Identification and Evaluation Methods Previous Research The first observations of prehistoric activity in the Indian River area was made by the father and son botanists, John and 'William Bartram, in 1766. The Bartrams noted the existence of several large prehistoric middens along waterways, though they did not recognize the nature of their creation by the Indians (Rouse 1981:63). William Bartram's later journey to the central Florida coast in I77I also noted the existence of middens and burials, as noted earlier (Bartram 1928), It was not until Daniel G. Brinton, an anthropologist from the University of Pennsylvania, visited the region in the 1850s that middens and burial mounds were professionally studied and clearly recognized as having been constructed by humans (Rouse 1981:63). Brinton was followed by Jeffries Wyman of Harvard University who conducted several expeditions to the region between 1860 and 1873 to study midden and habitation sites (Rouse 1981:63; Bickel 1992:7). A civil engineer from Titusville, Florida, J. Francis Le Baron, also discovered and studied a number of prehistoric sites in the region between 1877-1878 while working on a railway project. Le Baron became so interested in these sites that he hired an assistant to help him study the material, which he later donated to Harvard University's Peabody Museum (Rouse 1981:63; Dickel 1992:7). Wyman and Le Baron were followed by an archaeologist from New York, Andrew E. Douglass, who surveyed the region between 1878 and 1890. The published works of Wyman and Douglass concerning the St. Johns and Indian River region did a great deal to dispel the misconception that the "shell heaps" were natural and not produced by prehistoric Native Americans (Milanich 1994:245; Rouse 1981:63; Dicke] 1992:7). During the winter of 1895-1896, Clarence B. Moore began conducting excavations along the Indian River following earlier work he had completed along the St. Johns River between 1891-1894. Moore's work, which he conducted with a large crew, helped to provide the basis for the prehistoric chronology of the region which was better articulated by mels C. Nelson in 1918 (Rouse 1981:63-64; Dickel 1992:7-8; Milanich 1994:246). Moore's studies also helped to discern that many of the cooper artifacts found within mounds .Vere of aboriginal, and not European, origin by conducting compositional analysis of the metal itself. He demonstrated that metal working did exist prior to European contact and that extensive Nwtive i�uuei Wan trade networks would have existed to supply the material from the Great Lakes region (Purdy 1996:132-134). Little attention was paid to this region of Florida until ancient human remains were found in association with extinct, fossil animal at Veto Beach in 1915. During thc: conmut-tion of a drainagF — v4mil system for the afea, workers began noticing fossils in the sediments beginning in 1913, In 1915, two local residents were collecting fossils when they discovered human bones in association with the animal remains. The men contacted E.H.