And somewhere beneath the dark water, in the peat that has not been opened, the people buried there continue to be what they have always been: members of a community that cared for them in life, that placed them in a specific pond in a specific orientation, that wrapped them and anchored them and sent them into the ground.

The pond holds what the pond holds.

The rest belongs to time, and to whatever future arrives to ask the questions that have not yet been formed.

The Site In Context — Why Windover Stands Alone

Windover’s position in the history of North American archaeology is not simply a matter of exceptional preservation.

It is also a matter of timing, location, and the specific convergence of scientific capacity and archaeological opportunity that the excavations represented.

At the time the Windover excavations were conducted — 1984, 1985, and 1986 — ancient DNA science was in its infancy.