ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — 1000 years in the past, folks carried shells right here – including them to an already huge mound that is 900 ft lengthy, 300 ft huge, and 23 ft above the common excessive tide.
A shell mound — a part of the indigenous Tocobaga folks’s village — can be a part of the Jungle Prada neighborhood in St. Pete, searching over Boca Ciega Bay.
A part of the mound is within the Jungle Prada de Narváez Park, and one other half reaches throughout the property of the Anderson household, bought within the Nineteen Forties by Harold “Pleased” Anderson.
Grandson David Anderson guides the Jungle Prada Site Tour in St. Petersburg. His dad and mom, Erik and Doris, created the Sacred Lands Preservation and Training, a nonprofit group devoted to preserving the Tocobaga folks’s legacy.
Anderson is the third era of household caretakers, dedicated to sharing this historic web site with the general public.
The excursions begin greater than 20 ft under the mound, close to the shoreline of Boca Ciega Bay. That’s the place the Tocobaga fled from a Spanish conquistador and explorer within the 1500s.
“This was a fishing village of some hundred folks – and this was a military of Conquistadors on their ships with their horses and weapons,” stated Anderson.
Anderson guides guests towards the Tocobaga’s Plaza space enroute to the mound. It’s previous the place peacocks — sure, peacocks — are at the moment hanging close to the household residence. The fixtures have been there for the reason that Fifties.
The plaza is 12 ft above sea degree.
“And all of the shells you see was introduced by the Tocobaga as their constructing materials,” stated Anderson.
And a couple of dozen ft increased is the highest of the shell mound.
“When folks come for the tour, I would like them to remove there’s much more to Florida historical past than meets the attention,” stated Anderson.
The Anderson Mound on the Jungle Prada Complicated has excursions Wednesday via Sunday, from 11:30 a.m. – 2:30 p.m.
In case you can’t make the tour instances, you possibly can nonetheless get a have a look at a part of the mound advanced on the metropolis park subsequent door.