The Florida coastline along the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico was very different 12,000 years ago. 

Sea level was lower and rainfall less plentiful than today. As a result, the Florida peninsula was more than twice as large as it is now. Mastodons, camels, mammoths, bison, and horses roamed vast grasslands in search of food and fresh water. 

Native Americans spread throughout the peninsula and into the Keys. 

The rich variety of environments in prehistoric Florida supported a large number of plants and animals. The animal population included most mammals that we know today. In addition, many other large mammals that are now extinct (such as the saber-tooth tiger, mastodon, giant armadillo, and camel) roamed the land.

The people who inhabited Florida at that time were hunters and gatherers, who only rarely sought big game for food. Modern researchers think that their diet consisted of small animals, plants, nuts, and shellfish. These first Floridians settled in areas where a steady water supply, good stone resources for tool making, and firewood were available. 

Big game animals gradually became extinct, probably as a result of a wetter climate with forests replacing grasslands and overexploitation by human hunters. Food sources shifted to small game and shellfish.  

Calusa Indians on the Islands
Calusa (kah LOOS ah)

About 4,000 to 5,000 years ago, the barrier islands formed along the Southwest Florida coast, creating our incredibly productive estuarine ecosystems. This in turn resulted in the permanent settlement of Archaic peoples, who were attracted to the coast by the bountiful supply of fish and shellfish. These Archaic people were the early predecessors of the Calusa Indians.

Early Indian Feast

Some groups began burying their dead along with elaborate pottery and other goods in earthen mounds. By A.D. 1000 the Mississippian culture, originating farther north and eventually including much of the Southeast, extended into Florida. Today the only evidence of these first Floridians is contained in those remaining archeological sites that represent dozens of distinctive Indian cultures.

Over the centuries, these native people developed complex cultures. During the period prior to contact with Europeans, native societies of the peninsula developed cultivated agriculture, traded with other groups in what is now the southeastern United States, and increased their social organization, reflected in large temple mounds and village complexes.

Striking similarities between farming methods for corn used by South Florida Indians and the methods used on the savannas of northern South America has led some scholars to suggest that ancient people of South American migrated north to South Florida through the Antilles islands of the Caribbean.

Some forty coastal villages spread along the Florida Gulf Coast, with Mound Key near the mouth of the Caloosahatchee River the largest village. Despite the lack of domesticated animals and heavy tools, the Calusa built huge mounds of shell and deep moats to protect their villages of raised huts. Burial mounds and a temple mound for ceremonies encircled the village.

Mound Key is located in Estero Bay.  This island, believed to be the ancient capitol of the Calusa Civilization is a short kayak or canal trip from Lovers Key.

River of the Calusa

The Caloosahatchee River ("River of the Calusa") was the main highway of the Calusa into the interior. Its banks teamed with small game and its waters were abundant with fish and shellfish. Calusa canoes could circumvent Lake Okeechobee and travel up the Kissimmee River into other tribal areas.

By the time Ponce de Leon led the first documented Spanish landing party ashore near Sanibel Island in 1513, Calusa culture was thriving. Its people were divided into two distinct castes. Common people worked at tasks ordered by the nobility. They provided food, dug canals and labored at the construction of immense, complex shellworks and mounds like those that still exist on Mound Key today. A well-armed, highly structured military defended the Calusa realm. 

The Calusa paramount, or king, was said to have had supernatural ties to the heavens through which the day-to-day well-being of his subjects was assured.

The Calusa are considered important by researchers because they achieved a remarkable level of complexity without the benefit of agriculture. As hunter-gathers, they harvested their food from the rich Southwest Florida estuarine environment. Although they eventually died out due to the introduction of European disease for which they had no natural immunities, they succeeded in keeping their would-be Spanish conquerors at bay for almost two hundred years.

2000 Years on Mound Key
One significant Calusa Indian site is the Mound Key State Archaeological Site, a 125-acre sub-tropical island in the center of Estero Bay. Contained within its dramatic ridges, inland water courts, canals and shell mounds are archaeological clues that reveal that Mound Key has been inhabited for almost 2000 years. Native Florida Indians, Spanish fisher folk, and twentieth-century Euro-Americans all made their homes here -- each group altering the landscape in its own way.

Many scientists and researchers believe that Mound Key was "Calos" the capital town of the Calusa Indians. Positions of the mounds and the layout of the canal system offer support to this theory. All around the island, on shell ridges and high spots, were the houses of the people who lived on this island.

Sources:  Florida Secretary of State's Office; M. C. Bob Leonard, Professor of History, Hillsborough Community College, Tampa, Florida, the Florida State Archives and the town of Fort Myers Beach, Florida

More Local Historic Information:

Return to Local History

Early Human Life in Coastal Southwest Florida

Juan Ponce de León First Western Visitor

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