The Evolution of Calusa: A Nonagricultural Chiefdom of the Southwest Florida Coast

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The Evolution of the Calusa The Evolution of the Calusa A Nonagricultural Chiefdom on the Southwest Florida Coast Randolph J. Widmer The University of Alabama Press Tuscaloosa and London Copyright © 1988 by The University of Alabama Press Tuscaloosa, Alabama 35487 All rights reserved Manufactured in the United States of America Library of Congress Catalogjng-in-Publication Data Widmer, Randolph J. The evolution of the Calusa. Bibliography: p. Includes index. 1. Calusa Indians. 2. Paleoecology-Florida. 3. Human ecology-Florida. 4. FloridaAntiquities . I. Title. E99.C18W52 1988 975.9'01 86-30713 ISBN 0-8173-0358-8 British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data is available. Epigraph The development of the key dwellers in this direction , is attested by every key ruin-little or greatbuilt so long ago, yet enduring the storms that have since played havoc with the mainland; is mutely yet even more eloquently attested by every great group of the shell mounds on these keys builtfor the chief's houses and temples; by every lengthy canal built from materials of slow and laborious accumulation from the depths of the sea. Therefore, to my mind, there can be no question that the executive, rather than the social side of government was developed among these ancient key dwellers to an almost disproportionate degree; to a degree which led not only to the establishment among them of totemic priests and headmen, as among the Pueblos, but to more than this-to the development of afavored class, and of chieftains even in civil life little short of regal in power and tenure of office. -Frank Hamilton Cushing (1896:413) ...