Former Harris Corporation program manager and longtime Vero Beach resident Rody Johnson suffers from an insatiable thirst for knowledge. He has found a cure for the affliction, though: digging into a topic and learning everything he can.
Fortunately for the rest of us, he then puts pen to paper. This time, his digging was into a dig – the archaeological dig in the site known as Vero Man, one in a string of archaeological sites between Vero and Melbourne discovered 100 years ago that proved that humans were in the Florida peninsula as far back as the Ice Age, thousands of years earlier than was thought at the time the remains were found.
Johnson has just released his fifth book, “An Ice Age Mystery: Unearthing the Secrets of the Old Vero Site.”
“Rody has always loved researching things,” says his wife Tommye. “He loves research more than writing. He’ll see something that interests him and start digging into it.”
So it’s no surprise that his latest book digs deeply, both literally and figuratively, into the archaeology behind the Ice Age human remains that came to be known as Vero Man, discovered just north of what is now the Indian River County Administration building 100 years ago. His book chronicles events through the more recent discoveries of ancient bison bones in a renewed excavation effort now in its fourth year.
“I hope others gain a better understanding of archaeology from reading this book. I just wish I had a book like this. I would have known more, quicker,” says Johnson.
In the eighth grade, Johnson had aspirations of following in the footsteps of his hero Ernest Hemingway, but instead chose to take another path. After graduating from Cornell University and the University of Virginia, he spent some time in California before returning to Florida.
Growing up in Vero, Johnson heard stories of the night in 1942 when his father, an Auxiliary Coast Guard volunteer, rescued survivors torpedoed by a German submarine.
By the time Johnson decided to find out more about the event and his father’s role in it, Kit Johnson was suffering from Alzheimer’s disease and could give little input. In dogged pursuit, Johnson talked with locals and dug through archives, going so far as to visit the U-boat captain in Germany.
“It took me 13 years to write ‘Different Battles’ because it was my first one,” says Johnson. “First, I had to learn to write.”
And learn to write he did – with a little help from his friends. The Johnsons are part of the Sandfly Lane writers group that meets weekly at the home of Gertrude Terry in the Old Riomar neighborhood of Vero’s barrier island. “They listened to every word of ‘An Ice Age Mystery,’” says Johnson. “As I wrote the book, I would read each new section to the group during our meetings. Their feedback was invaluable.”
Johnson’s third book, “The Rise and Fall of Dodgertown,” is another historical journey. A lifelong Dodger fan, he was a natural to be drawn to the topic.
“The Dodgers left Vero Beach the year the book came out. It was great because every Dodger fan in the country visited Dodgertown. The book sold like hotcakes; then the Dodgers were gone,” he recalls.
Johnson heard about the resurrection of interest in Vero Man from a friend. After learning of plans to initiate a new dig, he was drawn into the 100-year saga but had difficulty with the jargon of the field. Johnson had more than a passing interest in archaeology. His father had uncovered some bones while digging a muck pond in 1955. “He thought he’d found the beginning of earth,” chuckles Johnson as he points to a large mammoth tooth. “He sent them off to Tallahassee, and they said this is great, but we’re finding this kind of stuff all the time.”
Having moved to Vero Beach in the 1930s, Johnson had peripheral knowledge of the Vero Man dig and subsequent discoveries. It was his recent conversations with archaeologist Andy Hemmings, who, with Dr. James Adovasio, oversees the new dig through Florida Atlantic University, that inspired Johnson to learn more about the controversy behind the discovery of the human bones in amongst remains of Ice Age mammals.
Johnson’s goal was to tell the story in terms the layperson could understand. He was pleasantly surprised when the University Press of Florida sent the book out for peer reviews, and the “experts” found his recount both accurate and compelling.
“Since the site’s discovery long ago, the complete story of the Old Vero Site has never been told. This is an informative and entertaining account of this remarkable site and its history in American archaeology,” writes Thomas D. Dillehay, author of “The Settlement of the Americas: A New Prehistory.”
Initially, Johnson attended board meetings and visited the site to gather material for his book. He gave tours, sifted through soil and spent countless hours talking with Adovasio, the site’s principal investigator.
“Like so many of the OVIASC membership, Rody has an unusually well-developed interest in the remote archaeology of central Florida,” explains Adovasio, using an acronym for the group funding the dig. “He has been instrumental in energizing a large group of similarly-minded folk that appreciate the depth of the pre-history of this part of the state and at the same time to have captured in a very dramatic way the 100-year saga of an interest in the Vero site.”
Vero Beach wasn’t the only Florida place of archaeological notoriety at the time. As interest in the Vero site waned, three sites in Melbourne drew the attention of scientists after two mammoth skeletons were discovered on the property of Harvard zoologist C.P. Singleton, along the banks of Crane Creek south of what is now the Melbourne Golf and Country Club. Like the Vero Site, the Crane Creek excavations into what is known as the Melbourne Bone Bed turned up human bones including a rib and a crushed skull among the mammal bones, all from the late Pleistocene era, 10,000 to 20,000 years ago. The animals represented there, now all extinct, include giant beavers, giant armadillos, mastodons and saber-toothed cats. Paleo-Indian artifacts were also found, as well as at a site 10 miles southwest of Melbourne, known as Lake Helen Blazes.
As Johnson tells the tale of the Vero Man, he takes the reader on an archaeological road trip, with stops not just in Melbourne, but Warm Mineral Springs in Sarasota County and along the Peace River, that curves southeast from north of Bartow in the center of the state, emptying into the gulf via the estuary at Port Charlotte. Those sites also produced human remains indicating the existence of Ice Age people at the same time as extinct Ice Age animals.
“I think he manages to weave a very exciting version that’s accessible by the lay public as well as by professionals to the 100-year history of the site in his book, and I think both his own interest and his ability to hold the interest of others are commendable things, to say the least,” continues Adovasio.
The Ice Age site still hasn’t given up all its secrets. At the end of the last season, one of the field technicians found bison bones.
On the cusp of the rainy season, they were forced to fill in the dig site, which they are currently in the process of excavating.
Next up for Johnson? He says he’s become very interested in healthcare, specifically in Indian River County. “I’ve done some preliminary research and started collecting stuff. I’m not sure how to put it all together yet. It’s very confusing,” says Johnson.
Johnson will be at the Vero Beach Book Center March 16 at 4 p.m. for a signing of “An Ice Age Mystery: Unearthing the Secrets of the Old Vero Site.” The book is available at Vero Beach Book Center, Corey’s Pharmacy and the Old Vero Site. It can be ordered from Amazon, Kindle, iBooks and the University Press of Florida.