Learn about Florida’s history through the artifacts and objects found at our state parks.
The fossil shell of a giant land tortoise is a highly prized artifact at Highlands Hammock State Park. The fossilized shell is on permanent display in the Hammock Inn, where it wows visitors with measurements of nearly 3-feet by 4-feet by 5-feet. Individual plates in the shell measure 5-inches in diameter.
The discovery of the tortoise is a remarkable story. In 1933, while work crews were excavating a ditch for laying a pipe through the orange grove near the entrance of the hammock, they uncovered vertebrate fossils of mastodon or mammoth tusks at a depth of 3-4 feet below the surface of the ground. The tusks disintegrated on exposure to the air, and when the shell and bones of the tortoise were found directly below the tusks, Jack Connery, an anthropologist from Rollins College, came to supervise further excavation. Connery and his wife labored for many hours to uncover the fossil, pai