RIVERMONT

Rivermont is an archaeological site part of what was once a large prehistoric site complex located on the north bank of the New River, within the Sailboat Bend Historic District. Once a thriving Tequesta village and ceremonial complex, this site holds at least 2,000 years of documented occupation and activity. The Tequesta were an indigenous people who predated the Seminole and inhabited southeast Florida from Boca Raton to Key West, and the Everglades. They were well adapted to the varied environments of south Florida. Rivermont is likely the best-preserved prehistoric site in eastern Broward County, representing one of the most intact and deepest surviving black earth middens on the New River. Rivermont’s existence has been known since the 19th century with reference to the site appearing in an 1896-1897 guidebook for Dade County, which later formed into what is now Broward County. Prominent American archaeologist Mark Raymond Harrington, who conducted some of the earliest archaeological investigations in Broward County, visited the site in 1908. The City of Fort Lauderdale designated Rivermont as a local archaeological site in 2021, and it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2022.