JUPITER ARCHEOLOGICAL DIG renders CHEVRON BEAD

Archeologist, Christian Davenport, uncovered some great facts about Jupiter’s beloved Pineapple House of Dubois Park.  Davenport, archeologist for Palm Beach County, discovered these findings when the county purchased the Dubois-Kindt property, located within Dubois Park, in 2010. It included the Pineapple House, which was built by Harry DuBois in the late 1800s to house his pineapple crop before shipping it out.

The DuBois family history started when Harry Dubois, who worked with Captain Carlin and the Jupiter Life Saving Station, married schoolteacher Susan Saunders and built her a home on top of the historical Indian mound in Dubois Park. Their son, John, was born in 1899 in the new house. John later married Bessie Wilson, who arrived in Jupiter with her parents in 1914 from New Jersey. Bessie became a noted historian in Florida.

According to Davenport, the DuBois location is the crown jewel of Florida history sites. It is the most studied site of over 300 historic digs throughout Florida. As he tried to put it in prospective for an audience, "The great pyramids of Egypt are 4,000 years old. Artifacts dug up in DuBois date back over 3,000 years and several are thought to be as old as 6,000." This means that people were living at the Jupiter Inlet location before the pyramids were even built."

The country received a grant for renovating the Dubois home on the Indian shell mound in 2012; however, before they could start renovations, it first had to determine that nothing of historical importance would be destroyed. The artifacts included pieces of pottery, beads and bone handled toothbrushes from the 18th and 19th century.

"The most exciting find is a faceted chevron bead, proof that some very important people had visited or occupied the area in the earliest phase of the exploration of the new world," said Davenport. "This bead is on display at the Palm Beach County Historical Museum and well worth the trip to West Palm to see it”.

Chevron beads were produced in Italy in the 14th century and used only by wealthy individuals for trade purposes. Chevron beads are special glass beads; the first specimens of this type were created by glass bead makers in Venice and Murano, Italy, toward the end of the 14th century.  They are composed of a varied number of consecutive layers of colored glasses. If you recall the island of Manhattan was purchased with beads!
 
In addition to the Jupiter Inlet site, there are other historical sites in the area including Suni Sands, Jupiter Lighthouse and the offshore Spanish shipwreck.