Melbourne Bone Bed

Fossil deposits from the Melbourne Bone Bed were discovered in a tributary of Crane Creek, similar to the one shown here.

Melbourne Bone Bed is a paleontological site located at Crane Creek in Melbourne, Florida. This site contains fossils from the Pleistocene period 20,000 to 10,000 years before present.^[1] The fossils include extinct animals such as varieties of camels, giant armadillos, giant beavers, giant bison, giant ground sloths, mammoths, mastodons, saber-toothed cats and tapirs.^[1]

Melbourne Man

Geologists uncovered a set of human remains among the fossils near the Melbourne Bone Bed and scientists exhibited the skull at the Paleontological Society of America meeting in 1925.^[1] This discovery sparked a 30 year debate between geologists and archaeologists resulting in the skull becoming known as the Melbourne Man.^[1] Recent consensus dates the Melbourne Man as early as 10,000 BC confirming that Native Americans coexisted with Pleistocene mammals in the area at the end of that period.^[1]

Notes

1. ^ ^{a b c d e} Brevard County Historical Commission. Historic Brevard: Your Guide to Historic Landmarks in Brevard County (2006), p. 24.