DNA was successfully extracted from some of the Windover individuals — a remarkable scientific achievement that provided the first genetic data from Early Archaic North Americans.

The Windover data showed that the early Floridians belonged to mitochondrial haplogroups that are found in modern Native American populations, confirming the genetic continuity between the ancient populations of the East and the Indigenous peoples who are their descendants.

But it also showed genetic characteristics that differed from modern populations in the region — suggesting that the populations of 7,000 to 8,000 years ago were not simply the direct ancestors of the historically documented tribes of Florida, but were part of a more complex population history involving multiple migrations, population replacements, and genetic drift over the intervening millennia.

The Carrier Mills site in southern Illinois — the third member of the trio of major Early Archaic North American cemeteries that Buckeye Knoll completed — is a late Archaic site along the Saline River, with burials dating from roughly 5,000 to 2,500 years before present.