Insect remains from the peat can similarly inform understanding of the local environment — which insects were present tells us something about temperature, vegetation type, and the specific ecological conditions of the site.

Faunal bone from the peat matrix — fish bones, bird bones, mammal bones — adds detail to the picture of what animals were being used for food.

The gut contents of some individuals provide the most direct evidence of diet: plant material, including seeds and berries, preserved in the digestive systems of individuals who were buried shortly after eating.

This kind of evidence is extraordinarily rare in the archaeological record and essentially impossible to obtain from dry-site burials.

At Windover, the peat preserved it.