Vero man
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Vero Man was a Paleo-Indian man whose fossilized bones were found near Vero (now Vero Beach), Florida, in 1915 and 1916. The human bones were found in association with those of Pleistocene animals. Pleistocene dates range from 2,580,000 to 11,700 years ago. The suggestion that humans might have been present in Florida (or anywhere in the Americas) during the Pleistocene was controversial at the time and most of the contemporary archaeologists did not accept that the Vero fossils could be that old. Recent studies show that, in fact, the Vero human bones are from the Pleistocene.
Starting in late 1913, vertebrate fossils were uncovered during the construction of a drainage canal from the Indian River between Vero and Gifford. Samples of the fossils were sent by Isaac M. Weills and Frank Ayers to the state geologist of Florida, E. H. Sellards, who recognized the finds as Pleistocene animals. In 1915, 26 fossilized human bones and fragments were found in the banks of the canal. The following year Sellards conducted his own excavations at the site, recovering an engraved mammoth tusk and a bird bone with marks possibly made by humans. In a nearby location he recovered human bones from the stratum that contained Pleistocene fossils. Sellards also found chert flakes and bone tools, including what appears to be a broken stemmed Archaic projectile point, and near the surface, he found a few ceramic sherds.[1][2]
Sellards first published his findings in 1916.[2] He invited other scientists to visit the Vero site in order to investigate it themselves in October 1916 and in March 1917. Aleš Hrdlička, T. Wayland Vaughan, Oliver Perry Hay, George Grant MacCurdy, and Rollin Thomas Chamberlin visited and examined the site. Sellards and Hay concluded that the human bones dated from the Pleistocene. Hrdlička, MacCurdy, and Chamberlin argued that the human bones were much more recent, while Vaughan felt that more evidence was needed before making a decision. Hrdlička, the most prominent physical anthropologist in America at the time, was firmly convinced that humans had not arrived in America until well after the Pleistocene had ended.[3]
Human bones, artifacts, and/or human-modified animal bones in a Pleistocene context now have been found elsewhere in Florida, including at the nearby Helen Blazes and Melbourne Bone Bed sites.[4]
