Over four thousand years ago, people lived at what is now Historic Spanish Point. Here these early Floridians fished and hunted, made tools from shell, bone and wood, mended their fishing nets, cooked their food and buried their dead. At Historic Spanish Point you will see a burial mound and two middens or shell mounds, […]
Over four thousand years ago, people lived at what is now Historic Spanish Point. Here these early Floridians fished and hunted, made tools from shell, bone and wood, mended their fishing nets, cooked their food and buried their dead. At Historic Spanish Point you will see a burial mound and two middens or shell mounds, […]
The Sarasota County History Center’s diverse collection offers the serious researcher and casual visitor alike an opportunity to view physical evidence of our fascinating past. The SCHC collects, catalogs, and maintains records of the history of Sarasota County. The Center maintains an historical archive, museum, and reference service for public interest and research. Includes a […]
Museum features many exhibits covering Native American prehistory in Florida beginning with the paleoindian time period. Also houses the world-renowned Montague Tallant Collection of Florida artifacts.
On a sweltering day in May of 1539, Hernando de Soto and an army of over 600 soldiers splashed ashore in the Tampa Bay area. They arrived in nine ships laden with supplies: two hundred and twenty horses, a herd of pigs, a pack of vicious war dogs, cannon, matchlock muskets, armor, tools and rations. […]
Emerson Point Park, a 195 acre site at the western end of Snead Island in Manatee County, Florida is a unique combination of cultural (six Native American Indian mounds and middens, and nineteenth century plantation settlement) and natural resources (hardwood hammocks, extensive mangroves, and saltwater marsh areas). This state owned site is managed by Manatee […]
The 10-acre site that encompasses Madira Bickel Mound was named after Mrs. Madira Bickel of Sarasota, who joined her husband Karl, in preserving Native American mounds from destruction. In 1948, the Bickels purchased and donated the mound and surrounding land to the state. The mound was the first site in Florida to become a state […]
Except for the singular find of an Archaic projectile point in the otherwise sterile sand under the midden material, the cultural materials indicate that the shell midden dates from after A.D. 1000, and probably mostly in the range of A.D. 1300 to 1700 (Weeden Island/Safety Harbor culture periods). Known as the Anderson/Narvaez Site after the […]
Step back in time and see what 16th Century Florida is all about! Adjacent to the Science Center is a recently developed 16th Century Indian Village very similar to what existed in the Tampa Bay area when the first Spanish contact occurred in the early 1500’s. Internal Links: Lost Worlds: Florida Ancient Civilizations of Florida […]
The Weeden Island site is a large shell midden and burial mound complex. The site first gained national attention in the early 1920s when Jesse Walter Fewkes of the Smithsonian Institution excavated a portion of the burial mound. These excavations discovered the finely made and ornately decorated mortuary vessels that archaeologists have come to associate […]
Features exhibits and artifacts relating to the first peoples who inhabited the Tampa Bay area. Includes the following Native American-themed exhibits: Winds of Change Theater profiles the first European contacts in Florida beginning with Panfilo Narváez’s landing near Tampa Bay in 1528. Florida’s First People features Tocobaga and Calusa artifacts, including tools, weapons and pottery, […]
Established in 1970, the museum offers the public a rare opportunity to trace the history of Safety Harbor and the surrounding Tampa Bay area from prehistoric to modern times. Descriptive dioramas and displays of fossils, projectile points, shell tools, beads and pottery tell the story of Florida’s first people and the arrival of Spanish explorers […]
Infolinks 2017