This museum houses the famous Montague Tallant Collection, one of the premier collections of Florida aboriginal artifacts from 1,700 years ago through European contact in the 1500s. The Archaic Man display contains artifacts and exhibit panels about people who lived in Florida between 9,000 and 5,000 years ago.

The River Heritage Hall exhibits the cultures that flourished along the Manatee River from European contact through modern times. Included in the exhibit is a history of the Spanish Ranchos of the late 1700s and an exhibit case of Civil War artifacts featuring an Enfield rifle-musket and a Union naval cutlass.

A separate exhibit on medical history includes an Ivory-handled Civil War period surgeon's kit that was found in the attic of an old house in Tallahassee in 1929.

www.southfloridamuseum.org

Information provided by Florida Department of State.