Calusa Fisheries and Estuarine Socio-Ecologies in Southwestern Florida: An Examination of Large-Bodied Fish

Mound Key (8LL2), a 51 ha anthropogenic island in Estero Bay, Florida, is comprised of a complex arrangement of midden-mounds of various sizes, canals, watercourts, causeways, and other features. Occupied from approximately a.d. 450 through European contact, Mound Key served as the primary center and political capital of an extensive Calusa socioeconomic network whose economy was rooted in fishing, gathering, and hunting. Drawing on zooarchaeological analyses of ichthyological refuse dating to between a.d. 1000 and 1350, I argue that the Calusa actively managed and invested in a core fishery that ultimately contributed to a complex, robust socio-ecological systems (SES). I examine the nature, role, and signatures of these fisheries, as their management underwrote the success of Calusa social, political, and economic systems.