The 8,000-Year-Old Cemetery Found Beneath A Florida Pond — And The Human Brain Tissue Still Preserved Inside The Skulls

The question of the specific tribal or cultural descendants of the Windover people cannot be answered through the available genetic evidence.

The Florida tribes of the historical period — the Calusa, the Timucua, and others — are separated from the Windover community by thousands of years and by the population disruptions of that long interval.

Whether any modern tribe carries a specific cultural or biological descent from the Windover people is not something the current evidence can establish.

This is not a particularly surprising conclusion.

Establishing genetic continuity across 8,000 years is extraordinarily difficult, and the specific patterns of population movement, replacement, and mixing in Florida over that period are complex and not fully understood.