People of the Dawn
HONORING
Species after species disappeared. Mammoths, mastodons, two species of bison, horse, llama, ground sloths, and many more were gone from the scene. Many species of shellfish went extinct. Tides crept in, swallowing villages within everyone's memory.

Choked with melt-water of glaciers, the Mississippi River, cut off migration routes to the west.

98 feet down in the Little Salt Springs sink hole, a giant land tortoise was found, laying on its back, on a limestone shelf. Of course, the tortoise could not have ended up that way by itself.

Giant tortoises went extinct around the same time as these powerful climatic changes. They were part of the world known by the ancient people who lived here. Were they a symbol of something meaningful to those ancient people?

I imagine these ancient people climbing down into that hole in the earth. They knew of their connection to the Mother Earth.

NTS OO2 Little Salt Springs, ©2001

Although humans were weak and could easily be killed by a Short-faced bear or an American lion, they could kill these animals too. Humans found strength in the tools and weapons they could create. Their songs filled the mysterious night with the stories of their bravery. They reached out to that Great Mystery. Their mouths formed the words and the words rose with the smoke. Their struggle for survival connected them to their landscape in an intelligent way, and it was with that intelligence that they reached out.

Did the throat of Little Salt Springs vibrate with their chant, their hope?

If you listen, they will teach you.

Our culture has taught us to believe in Social-Darwinism. This insidious notion - "survival of the fittest" - easily translates into "might makes right." It was the very foundation of the idea of the "master race," promoted by Nazi Germany.

The Windover Pond site, near Titusville, Florida, offers a wonderful story. It sends a very different message to you from over 7,400 years ago. It's message of love leaves social Darwinism in the attic of a by-gone era where it belongs.

A child was born to those ancient people. That child was born with a gaping hole in the vertebrae of his lower back. The bones never grew together. Spina bifida, stole this child's use of his legs. Although world of 8,000 years ago was truly challenging, this child survived until he was fourteen years old. His people cared for him. They did not "vote" him out and discard him as a "weak link". They did not throw him away. They carried him with them on their migrations to hunt and gather food.

Darwinian evolution is a paradigm. It is but one phase in the wonderful story of cultural change. Of course, there is evolution, but there are more mechanisims at work than what are most obvious.

Visit Windover Pond for more amazing stories.