Granberry has provided an inventory of phonemes to the sounds of the Calusa language.[22][21]. The Calusa: "The Shell Indians" The Calusa (kah LOOS ah) lived on the sandy shores of the southwest coast of Florida. Calusa political influence and control also extended over other tribes in southern Florida, including the Mayaimi around Lake Okeechobee, and the Tequesta and Jaega on the southeast coast of the peninsula. They created a variety of crafts, including jewelry, masks, and canoes. Salvaged goods and survivors from wrecked Spanish ships reached the Calusa during the 1540s and 1550s. These massive, rectangular structures built of shell and sediment enclose large areas on both sides of the mouth of Mound Keys great canal, a marine highway nearly 2,000 feet long and about 100 feet wide that bisects the island. In their early period there is evidence of sacrifice of captives and of cannibalism. The men wore their hair long. Historic documents say the Calusa then set fire to Mound Key and fled the island, which also prompted the Spanish to leave. Shell mounds are hills of discarded seashells, which the Calusa created by depositing the shells of marine creatures they had eaten. Carlos, also known as Calos or King Calusa (died 1567), was king or paramount chief of the Calusa people of Southwest Florida from about 1556 until his death. By around 5000 BC, people started living in villages near wetlands. Ravaged by new infectious diseases introduced to the Americas by European contact and by the slaving raids, the surviving Calusa retreated south and east. The Calusa were a very advanced tribe. The Calusa were a Native American tribe that inhabited the southwest coast of Florida. Commoners supported the nobility and provided them with food and other material necessities. [17], The Calusa believed that three supernatural people ruled the world, that people had three souls, and that souls migrated to animals after death. The king entertained the governor in a building so large that 2,000 people could stand inside. We seek to retell the story of our beginnings. Updates? The Calusa Domain. According to the documents, the brushwood and lumber fort encompassed some 36 structures. Beginning roughly 2,000 years ago, the Calusa enjoyed centuries of dominance as the undisputed rulers of southwest Florida. The Calusa remained committed to their belief system despite Spanish attempts to convert them to Catholicism. Detailed analysis and AMS dates led us to the realization that the structure went through at least three phases of building activity over several centuries, the earliest phase dating to around A.D. 1000.. Calusa territory reached from Charlotte Harbor to Cape Sable, all of present-day Charlotte, Lee, and Collier counties, and may have included the Florida Keys at times. The Calusa Indians did not farm like the other Indian tribes in Florida. But our work over the past 35 years has shown the Calusa developed a politically complex society with sophisticated architecture, religion, a military, specialists, long-distance trade and social ranking all without being farmers.. More were evacuated to Cuba, where many of them died. By the constant invasions of the Creek and other Indian allies of the English, they were driven from the mainland and forced to take refuge on the Florida Keys. The Calusa case also illustrates remarkably sophisticated engagements with, and long-term large-scale management of, coastal and estuarine environments.. Previous indigenous cultures had lived in the area for thousands of years. The chief lived in the main village at the mouth of the Miami River. Around A.D. 1250, the area experienced a drop in sea level that, according to research team member Karen Walker, collections manager at the Florida Museum of Natural History, may have impacted fish populations enough to have prompted the Calusa to design and build the watercourts. The Calusa (kah LOOS ah) lived on the sandy shores of the southwest coast of Florida. The Calusa were a Native American people who lived in what is now southwestern Florida from about 700 to 1763. ( Public Domain ), Featured image: Calusa people fishing. . Marquardt and Victor Thompson of the University of Georgia are co-directing research at Mound Key, which has a complex arrangement of shell midden mounds, canals, watercourts and other features. The ancestors of the Calusa are said to have survived by hunting prehistoric animals such as woolly mammoths and giant tortoises, and collecting fruits and other edible plants. Fontaneda lived with various tribes in southern Florida for the next seventeen years before being found by the Menendez de Avils expedition. They recovered various types of Spanish artifacts such as majolica ceramics, hand-wrought nails and spikes, a bale seal and olive jar sherds, as well as native artifacts. At the top of the hierarchy was the chief, who had control over the life and death of his subjects, and was believed to have the ability to communicate with the spirits. For me, the work has been absolutely fantastic and since we began it has been one discovery after another, said Thompson. Southeastern Archaeology, 33(1), 124. Senquene succeeded his brother (name unknown), and was in turn succeeded by his son Carlos. By the early 19th century, Anglo-Americans in the area used the term Calusa for the people. The event will be held . Please try again in a few minutes. The Tequesta lived in the southeastern parts of present-day Florida. They were known for their skill in battle, and they were able to successfully resist the Spanish and other European settlers who attempted to invade their territory. Julian Granberry has suggested that the Calusa language was related to the Tunica language of the lower Mississippi River Valley. These Indians were prodigious excavators who cut canals like the 'long cut' and 'short cut' at the south end of Pine Island. When the Spanish explored the coast of Florida, they soon became the targets of the Calusa, and this tribe is said to have been the first one that the explorers wrote home about. Honestly, we have explored a very small sample of Mound Key and other nearby island sites., ln the next couple of years, Thompson added, Id like to return to Mound Key to look more closely at the fort and its structures to really delve into Calusa-Spanish interactions.. It is said that they even held dominance over tribes on the east coast of Florida, despite them being on the southwest side of the state. Undecorated pottery belonging to the early Glades culture appeared in the region around 500 BC. Some of these masks had moving parts that used pull strings and hinges so that a person could alter the look of a mask while wearing it. This use of marriages to secure alliances was demonstrated when Carlos offered his sister Antonia in marriage to the Spanish explorer Pedro Menndez de Avils in 1566. Such hierarchy and inequality are generally characteristics of societies that practice agriculture, he observed. The Calusa (said to mean fierce people ) are a Native American tribe that once inhabited the southwestern coast of Florida. . Relying on aquatic resources, the Calusa developed into a powerful, tributary chiefdom prior to the arrival of the Spanish in the sixteenth century, and occasionally expanded their reign to include other southern Florida tribes. One of the most notable traditions of the Calusa was their use of shell mounds. What traditions did the Calusa tribe have? It was during this phase of research that the team located and documented the massive kings house, showing it was indeed every bit as impressive as Spanish accounts, which claimed it was large enough to accommodate some 2,000 people. One example of a shell mound can be found at a site known as Mound Key at Estero Bay in Lee County. These Indians controlled most of south Florida. One answer is found in the productive estuarine environment of the southwest Florida Gulf coast. From several firsthand accounts of south Florida Indians written by Europeans, it is apparent that the Calusa were socially complex and politically powerful. The Calusa were also very warriors. The Calusa are said to have been a socially complex and politically powerful tribe, and most of southern Florida was controlled by them. Later periods in the Caloosahatchee culture are defined in the archaeological record by the appearance of pottery from other traditions. Indeed, given the results of recent research, they are now considered one of the most politically complex groups of non-agriculturalists in the ancient world. Despite the social complexity and political might that the Calusa attained, they are said to have eventually went extinct around the end of the 18 th century. The first Spanish explorers found that these Indians were not very friendly. Supported in part by a grant from National . They traded with other Native American tribes in Florida, as well as with people in Mexico and Central America. The Spanish documented four cases of known succession to the position of paramount chief, recording most names in Spanish form. You will be redirected to the LC Catalog start page shortly, or continue by clicking the following link: LC Catalog They were a very innovative and prosperous tribe, and had a number of traditions that set them apart from other tribes in the area. The Spanish careened one of their ships, and Calusas offered to trade with them. The Calusa king had the power of life and death over his subjects and was thought by them to be able to intercede with the spirits that sustained the environment's bounty. They made tools and weapons of seashells and fish bones. Spanish admiral Pedro Menndez de Avils (1519-1574) by Francisco de Paula Mart (1762-1827) ( Public Domain ). The Calusa were a Native American tribe that inhabited the southwest coast of Florida. Hernando de Escalante Fontaneda, an early chronicler of the Calusa, described "sorcerers in the shape of the devil, with some horns on their heads," who ran through the town yelling like animals for four months at a time. Diseases would ravage their population and force . Commoners supported the nobility and provided them with food and other material necessities. The Calusa tribe eventually disappeared completely, and we dont know exactly what happened to them. The Calusa Indians traveled in 15-foot dug out canoes. Enemy Indian tribes from Georgia and South Carolina began raiding the Calusa territory. [10][11][12], Mollusk shells and wood were used to make hammering and pounding tools. The Caloosahatchee culture inhabited the Florida west coast from Estero Bay to Charlotte Harbor and inland about halfway to Lake Okeechobee, approximately covering what are now Charlotte and Lee counties. The Calusa have long fascinated archaeologists because they were a fisher-gatherer-hunter society that attained unusual social complexity, said William Marquardt, curator emeritus of South Florida Archaeology and Ethnography at the Florida Museum of Natural History. [Online]Available at: http://fcit.usf.edu/florida/lessons/calusa/calusa1.htm, Florida Museum of Natural History, 2016. It has been speculatively identified as Calusa in origin. At some point of time in their history, this tribe discovered that there was a wealth of fish in the waters, and began to exploit this resource. Cord was also made from cabbage palm leaves, saw palmetto trunks, Spanish moss, false sisal (Agave decipiens) and the bark of cypress and willow trees. When the Spanish arrived in Florida in the early 16 th century, the Calusa were already in possession of a complex centralized government. "[6] In 1564, according to a Spanish source, the priest was the chief's father, and the military leader was his cousin. Tracking the Calusa: A Retrospective. However, no evidence of plant food was found at the Wightman site. This language family includes languages spoken by Native American tribes in the Southeastern United States, including the Alabama, Coushatta, Koasati, and Mikasuki languages. Dominican missionaries reached the Calusa domain in 1549 but withdrew because of the hostility of the tribe. The surviving members of the Calusa tribe either fled to Cuba or joined the Seminole Tribe. Menndez left a garrison of soldiers and a Jesuit mission, San Antn de Carlos, at the Calusa capital. American Archaeology cover, featuring Florida Museum illustration by Merald Clark. Archaeologists have long pondered how the Calusa could have grown to a population of some 20,000 and dominated such a vast region without relying on agriculture. The Calusa wove nets from palm-fiber cord. The Calusa also made fish traps, weirs, and fish corrals from wood and cord. Some research indicates that they may have immigrated to Cuba during the 18th century as a result of recurring invasions by the Creek and the English, while other work suggests they may have joined the Seminole, who moved into Florida early in the 19th century and were later removed to Oklahoma. The archaeology of the Calusa is important worldwide in that it illustrates the development of very pronounced hierarchy, inequality, monumentality and large-scale infrastructure by hunter-gatherer-fisher societies, said Chris Rodning of Tulane University, who was not involved with this research. Archaeological excavations in southern Italy have yielded a treasure trove of Greek artifacts from the ancient city of Paestum. The mission was closed after only a few months. The research team uncovered a network of post holes and foundation trenches that indicate a large structure measuring about 80 feet long and 65 feet wide covered the summit of the islands highest hill. The chief's house, and possibly the other houses at Calos, were built on top of earthen mounds. Five friars who stayed in the chief's house in 1697 complained that the roof let in the rain, sun and dew. Widmer cites George Murdock's estimate that only some 20 percent of the Calusa diet consisted of wild plants that they gathered. Figuring out how to shore up the walls of wooden buildings using a very early kind of tabby architecture is impressive and represents creative thinking and ingenuity in an unfamiliar and challenging setting, said Marquardt. Many people lived in large villages with purpose-built earthwork mounds, such as those at Horr's Island. [Online]Available at: http://www.calusalandtrust.org/who_were_the_calusa/who_were_the_calusa.htm, Ripley, K., 2016. [19], Little is known of the language of the Calusa. [Online]Available at: http://floridahistory.org/indians.htm, Marquardt, W. H., 2014. 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