OLD VERO SITE
ting through the ancient wetland, the canal
1915, farmer Frank Ayers made a startling
discovery — human bones — while walking
today’s County Administration Complex,
would become known as the Old Vero Site.
At the time, Florida State geologist Elias
Sellards was aware of the Ice Age mammal
bones at Vero, but mammal finds were
becoming common in Florida. What got
his attention were the human bones. In
1916, Sellards came to Vero to excavate
the site. He found the remains of another
human, including pieces of its skull, which
was named Vero Man.
AMAZING DISCOVERIES
Sellards further uncovered separate
pieces of bone and teeth that brought to
five the number of humans found. Sellards
also unearthed the bones of 23 types of
mammals that went extinct at the end of
the Ice Age, 11,500 years ago. This was an
amazing collection of mammals compared
to other North American archaeological
remains in the same soil layer and in association
that humans inhabited the land at the
same time.
This challenged conventional wisdom
that humans were in North America no
20
exposed bones of Ice Age mammals. In
along the canal. The spot, just behind
sites. Because Sellards found human
with these mammals, he concluded
more than 6,000 years ago. Today, the
conventional view is that the first humans
arrived in North America at least 16,000
years ago.
Vero gained fame the world over for Sellards’
discoveries. In the more exaggerated
newspaper reports the site was dubbed
the Garden of Eden; Adam and Eve had
been found.
Sellards invited the top archaeologists
and geologists of the time to Vero to
inspect his findings. Among them was Ales
Hrdlicka of the Smithsonian Institution,
who was a proponent of the well-established
opinion that people had not arrived
in the Americas prior to 6,000 years ago. To
dispute him was considered heresy. After
his inspection at Vero, Hrdlicka declared
that Sellards was wrong and the human
remains were not from the Ice Age, but the
result of ancient Indian burials years later.
The importance of Vero quickly
diminished. Within a couple of years,
Sellards moved to Texas. But soon
Hrdlicka’s theory of when people came
to the Americas was refuted in the 1920s
at Clovis, New Mexico, where a projectile
point was found with the bones of Ice
Age bisons. Clovis people had inhabited a
broad part of the United States as far back
as 12,000 years ago. The development of
radiocarbon dating scientifically proved
that the Clovis people were indeed
City of Vero Beach 1919-2019 VeroBeach100.org
present at the end of the Ice Age. Could
Sellards have been right about Vero?
In 1945, an archaeologist at the Smithsonian
inspected the skull of Vero Man and
discovered that it was a woman. The Old
Vero Man name was no longer appropriate.
Then the skull disappeared with no
explanation.
NEW EXCAVATION
In 2006, the city planned another water
treatment plant along the Main Canal. The
construction required an archaeological
review. Archaeologist Barbara Purdy came
from the University of Florida and pointed
out to those that had forgotten, that this
is the Old Vero Site. She became an active
promoter of re-excavating the site. >>
STATE ARCHIVES OF FLORIDA
Bones of the Vero Man were uncovered at the 1916 Old Vero Site excavation along the Main Canal.
ED DRONDOSKI
Amateur collector James Kennedy found this ancient
carving on a bone, which was displayed at the Vero
Beach Museum of Art.
OVIASC
Archaeologist James Adovasio was the principal
investigator for the 2014-2017 excavation.
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