The First 12,000 Years: Native American Life and Culture

Distance:

116 miles

Driving Time:

2 hours, 44 minutes


What to expect:

You should figure on spending several hours on the walking and hiking trails at Sams House and at the Indian Mound Station Sanctuary, and at least 90 minutes in the Brevard Museum of History and Natural Science. Accordingly, you may want to plan a full day for this tour.


Restrooms and other visitor facilities are noted in the brief descriptions below.


This tour will follow the traces of Native American life and culture in the Indian River region, beginning with the arrival of the first inhabitants during the Ice Age and continuing through subsequent centuries—up to and after the arrival of European explorers and American settlers.


Many of the sites of native settlement in the Titusville area are no longer visible due to the thick vegetation and changing water levels in the St. Johns River watershed and gradual destruction of many burial mounds and shell middens. Yet this tour highlights some of the most important and accessible evidence of Native American life through the centuries between the Indian River and St. Johns River watershed.