UCF Archaeologists Excavate Ancient Native American Site at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station

Florida students are digging up traces of ancient life at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, a spot tied to space launches.

University of Central Florida students and faculty are excavating the DeSoto site along the Atlantic coast there. The site dates to the Malabar II Period, from about 900 to 1565 A.D. It features black earth midden deposits, layers of ancient refuse.

Middens 'contain the garbage that people left behind after undertaking their daily tasks,' said Sarah 'Stacy' Barber, an anthropology professor at the University of Central Florida.

Barber told Fox News Digital that 'obtaining and preparing food' ranked as a key daily activity for the residents.

'They didn’t farm, although research by Neil Duncan has shown that at least some people in the region had access to ground corn, which was being farmed by the Indigenous people of North Florida,' she said.

Native Americans in the area drew mainly on local resources. Some had access to imported foods like corn and beans. They ate seafood too, including shark, fish, clams and other species. Remains of those have appeared in the midden.

'We know from our finds this year at DeSoto that turtles, shark, black drum, and coquina clams were on the menu,' Barber said. 'We have found the refuse of many dozens of meals.'

Ancient people fished the lagoon and beachfront, she added. Plant remains, which need more lab time, will show if they paired the animals with foods like acorns and greenbriar. There is even evidence of seasonings, meaning they 'spiced up their food just like we do.'

'We have made a number of really interesting finds this year,' Barber said.

Among them: a complete shark vertebral column, which Native Americans ate, plus something that is either a fossil or a whale bone near it. The unidentified object 'has really stumped us,' the anthropologist said. 'We look forward to figuring out what that is.'

Archaeologists have turned up hundreds of pottery sherds and remnants of at least one hearth, likely used to cook food. They found tools too, including conch shell hammers and shark tooth knives for food prep.

The remains indicate Indigenous people made deliberate food choices. Shark bones appear at the site, but little evidence points to dolphin hunting.

Researchers say the Native Americans relied on local resources for centuries while maintaining contact with other tribes.

'The Indigenous people of Cape Canaveral lived in relatively dense communities and relied 100% on locally obtained food,' Barber said. 'They did it for thousands of years, and they didn’t put the kind of stress on the local environment that we have in far less time.'

The community was well-connected, not isolated or scraping by, she said. 'Our sites show an abundance and diversity of food, time to produce pottery when needed, and the opportunity to either travel or interact with people in distant regions.'

'It was probably a comfortable, beachfront lifestyle.'

Samples still await radiocarbon dating at an outside lab. Above all, Barber said, the digs highlight how past and present overlap. 'There are few places in the world highlighting the role of the past in the present than somewhere like Cape Canaveral, where the future of space flight literally sits atop and among Native American landscapes,' she said.