The thought that primitive humans walked the same ground as we do has fascinated locals for years. Now, thanks to advanced technology, the eyes of renowned international archeologists are focused on Vero Beach more intensely than ever before. When the prehistoric bones of “Vero Man” were found in 1915, it was the belief of Florida State geologist Ellas Sellards that they belonged to someone living at the same time as Late Ice Age mammals, more than 14,000 years ago, but the scientific community continued to debate his findings.
The Old Vero Ice Age Site, along the banks of the Indian River County Main Relief Canal near Aviation Boulevard, was left unprotected for decades, excavated again in the 1970s, and eventually closed off for preservation in 2009.
At Riomar Country Club last week, supporters of the project gathered at a fundraising dinner hear Donald Grayson speak on North America’s Extinct Ice Age Mammals, and to raise money for the dig and possibly a museum in the next 10 years. That Grayson and other respected experts in the archeological community have lent their weight to the project is of immense importance to the cause.
“My colleagues are interested in this site right now worldwide,” said Barbara Purdy, a prominent archeologist from the University of Florida and the Natural Museum of Natural History in Gainesville.
Purdy and others believe that OVIAS discoveries provide evidence of some of the earliest humans in the western hemisphere and attest that Sellards was correct.
“It may help us establish when people came to this part of the world,” said Ron Rennick, an OVIAS board member. “It has always been a common thought that people came across the Bering Strait but there is new evidence that they may have come also from Europe around the polar ice caps by boat and stopping off at points along the way coming down the coast to here.”
Many of the prehistoric bones discovered here are scattered throughout the United States at universities and research institutions. Before any could be returned there would need a suitable facility in which to keep them.
“As soon as we have the proper repository we would like to house them here in a museum which will bring in people from all over,” said site manager Dann Jacobus.
OVIAS holds fossil road shows every year to discover and better preserve items found by locals and kept over the years as keepsakes.
“James Kennedy is the one that found one of the most significant pieces,” said board member Charlotte Terry, who came up with the slogan “Dig Old Vero.” “He’s the one that found the mammoth bone that had the carved art on it and kept it under his sink or something for years.”
“We have evidence that human activity took place at the Vero Man Ice Age site,” said board member Bill Aufiero, who has put together a mini-museum used at schools. “It has been my goal to get a portable museum that we can take to school children because what we really want is to interest the young in pursuing an education so they can be the ones that find more discoveries.”
