Right by Miles
Two teenage boys are in a car chase with a reckless, sexually perverted Polk County sheriff’s deputy. The boys crash, killing Miles White, 16. But the sheriff’s office does not investigate its deputy’s involvement. Why?
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After the last ice age about 10,000 years ago, water started receding from coastal Florida, exposing what is now Safety Harbor. Perhaps sick of subzero temperatures and wearing fur all the time, people from the early archaic period began hiking south until they found their paradise — and what a paradise it must have been. No buildings or concrete, just lots of wild animals, freshwater springs and lush vegetation. "They were probably the first snowbirds,'' said Bobbie Davidson, director of operations at the Safety Harbor Museum of Regional History. A talented person who lived during the archaic period made the 6,000- to 8,000-year-old spear point found this week in a Safety Harbor park.
The descendants of those first wanderers became the Tocobaga Indians, who lived in the Tampa Bay area from 500 to 1700. In some ways, the Tocobaga were like many Tampa Bay area residents today.
They tattooed themselves, and they thought living near the water was a sign of high status.
To get to know them better, we talked to Davidson and her colleague Tom Ahrens, the museum's education director.
Where did they live?
Tocobaga country was within a 50-mile radius of Safety Harbor.
How did they live?
They were hunter-gatherers. They did a lot of fishing using nets and weirs, which are fences or enclosures set in the water for capturing fish. They probably traded fish for corn with agricultural tribes.
What was unique about these people?
The Spanish called the Tocobaga "the giant Indians" because some were 61/2 to even, it is said, 7 feet tall. They had a good diet of berries, seafood, roots, whitetail deer, bird eggs, and turtles and manatees because they were so plentiful at that time.
What were some of their customs?
To prevent inbreeding and war, the Tocobaga were not allowed to marry inside their own villages. So the young man would go to live in the woman's village, and the extended family connections would promote peace and stability.
What happened to them?
About 150 years after the Spanish arrived, they were decimated by European diseases.
What did they leave behind?
Their own skeletons, pottery, weapons and a 30-foot-tall ceremonial Indian mound at Philippe Park atop which the chief would live at times. There is evidence of postholes to prove it. It is the largest remaining mound in the Tampa Bay area.
Eileen Schulte can be reached at schulte@sptimes.com or (727) 445-4153.
>>Fast facts
If you go
You can see the 6,000- to 8,000-year-old spear point at the Safety Harbor Museum of Regional History, 329 Bayshore Blvd. S. Hours are 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesdays-Fridays and 1 to 4 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays.
[Last modified: Jul 21, 2008 05:25 PM]
Comments on this article
by johnsaxer
Jul 21, 2008 5:25 PM
These mounds that a 6,000 to 8,000 yr. old knife were found may be older than the previously thought 500-1500yr. range that local authorities thought.
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