Mount Elizabeth, a prominent rise on the west bank of the Indian River, is a collection of debris from a Late Archaic village more than 4,200 years old. During the Archaic tradition in Florida, people were beginning to settle in villages year round and specialize in local environments, and as sea levels neared their modern levels around 6,000 years ago, barrier islands, swamps, wetlands, and the Indian River Lagoon formed. Early residents used the lagoon’s rich estuary for food and for making tools, clothing, and personal items, including woodworking tools fashioned from queen conch and some of the earliest pottery in North America made by mixing palmetto fiber and Spanish moss with clay, reflecting social alliances along Florida’s east coast and perhaps beyond. Archaeological excavations show that the upper 15 feet of the 30-foot-tall site consists of layered shell midden dating to the Late Archaic, indicating a village of many people occupied for only a few hundred years. The most recent deposits suggest shellfish became scarce and people turned almost entirely to fish, possibly because of overharvest, before the village was abandoned around 3,700 years ago. Later American Indian groups used only the site’s margins, and the early settlement of Waveland also chose Mount Elizabeth as a home.