The organic fraction of those communities’ material lives is gone in most places, leaving only the stone.

Windover showed what the organic fraction could contain.

The lesson was discomforting in a productive way: the archaeological record of the Americas is much thinner than the reality of the lives it represents.

What Remains

The Windover Pond is still there.

It sits within the residential subdivision that was eventually built around it, a half-acre of dark water in a neighborhood of Florida homes.

The houses are around it, the roads run near it, the development that was supposed to cross it was built to accommodate its presence rather than to eliminate it.