In the 16th century, the Calusa, a fisher-gatherer-hunter society, were the most politically complex polity in Florida, and Mound Key, an island in Estero Bay off Florida’s Gulf Coast, was their capital. The available evidence indicates that the Calusa had a large population (ca. 20,000) and were one of the most politically complex groups of hunter-gatherers of the ancient world. How did the Calusa provide and sustain food sufficient for the complex...
