There were people living in Florida for 12,000 years before Columbus got here, living all over the state. Before hardware stores and shopping malls, these people managed to get food, make clothing, and cook their meals. In The Crafts of Florida’s First People, Robin Brown asks:

How did they do it?

And in an effort to answer his question, he actually learns to do things the way that they did and shares them in his book. Using materials that you can find in Florida today, you can learn with him how to throw spears and darts, make pottery, weave cloth, mix paint, build traps, and even how to start a fire without matches—just the way Florida’s first people did for thousands of years.