o HISTO GY RY o LO E EO CO A L H O C G R Y A o o Friends of the Randell Research Center o A o March 2018 • Vol. 17, No. 1 S H W C E EA LEARN, WE T The Belle Glade Monumental Landscape Okeechobee area and Calusa coastal peoples shared knowledge, history, beliefs by Nathan Lawres s readers of this newsletter know, the Calusa who lived on the southwest AFlorida coast were accomplished engineers and build- ers who had a rich social, political, and spiritual life. But what if I were to ask you about their equally awe- inspiring neighbors to the east, the Mayaimi or Belle Glade archaeological culture – the people who lived in the Kissimmee River Valley and around Lake Okeechobee? Some folks might respond, “Oh! The people that lived at Fort Center!” This is partly because the only widely publicized work on Belle Glade area archaeology is about Fort Center, but it is also because not much work has been focused on this part of Florida. The Belle Glade culture lived in a vast, wet landscape. The A) Kissimmee-Okeechobee-Everglades (KOE) watershed; B) Tony’s Kissimmee-Okeechobee-Everglades watershed was once full of Mound, a Type B circular-linear earthwork). fl owing water for six to nine months of the year, with tree-island hammocks providing the only dry ground. However, during the The most conspicuous part of the Belle Glade culture was the dry season the water receded in many areas, leaving the landscape monumental architecture they built across the landscape. Over muddy and dotted with ponds. The Belle Glade people lived on the course of nearly 2,000 years, these people built a variety the tree islands and depended for food on the plentiful fi sh of complex earthworks ranging from circular ditches to vast arrays (primarily catfi sh, gar, and bowfi n) and turtles. They also hunted of geometrically shaped sand ridges. The later forms are particular deer and other mammals, and used their strong mammalian bones fascinating. Known as “Type B circular-linear earthworks,” each to make tools. This was necessary due to a lack of local stone. consists of a large semi-circular sand ridge that partially surrounds They also imported marine shells and shark teeth for making tools, a midden-mound. From the semi-circle, multiple linear sand ridges and made a pottery known to archaeologists as Belle Glade Plain. radiate outwards like the spokes of a wheel or the rays of the sun, and the ridges end in large conical sand mounds. Celestial alignments at select Type B circular-linear earthworks. Over the past few years I have been thinking about these earth- A) Tony’s Mound; B) Big Mound City; C) Fort Center; D) Hendry Earthworks. works in terms of the way Belle Glade peoples understood their Continued on page 2 Continued from page 1 Okeechobee Basin, but some are to important places where large numbers of people were buried in water, such as the charnel pond at Fort Center and the Lake Okeechobee burials at Ritta and Kreamer Islands. There are also examples of alignments to sites on the Atlantic and Gulf coasts. Particularly intriguing are the alignments to Pineland and Mound Key, which we know to be two of the most important Calusa sites. Both of these sites have multiple alignments converging on them from several different Belle Glade sites. This suggests that these were very important places to the Belle Glade people, and further demonstrates the long-term relationships between coastal and interior peoples. Archaeologically we know that a relationship began developing between them by at least AD 500. This is known through the presence of Belle Glade pottery at Calusa sites, which by AD 1000 had become the major pottery Site alignments from Tony’s Mound. A) onset of the rainy season, the summer throughout the Calusa heartland. These Tony’s Mound; B) Fort Center; C) Big Mound solstice signals the peak of heavy rains, City; D) Joseph Reed Shell Ring; E) Naples alignments help to show that this associa- Canal; F) Mound Key; G) Pineland; H) the fall equinox marks the end of the tion was important enough to the Belle Ortona Earthworks. heaviest rains, and the winter solstice Glade people to represent it in their signals the beginning of a drying landscape. architecture. To me, this suggests that it world. Like other Native groups, they These differences in water levels are tied to is a relationship we should explore further would have understood the importance animal distributions, behaviors, and breed- in archaeological studies because it will of relationships, not only between people ing seasons. These are important to fi sher- help give us a much richer understanding but also between different elements of hunter-gatherers, especially given the signifi - of the dynamics of the history of South their landscape and between important cance of relationships for Native Americans Florida’s Native inhabitants. places on the landscape. I have been able between people and non-human animals. to identify several of these important Second, the relationships between For more details, see Lawres, Nathan R., relationships, each of which is embodied people and places on the landscape are 2017, Materializing Ontology in in the architecture. also embodied in the linear ridges. If you Monumental Form: Engaging the First, the relationships between the extend the lines of these ridges across the Ontological in the Okeechobee Basin, cosmos, landscape, and time are embodied entire landscape, they line up with monu- Florida, Journal of Anthropological in the linear ridges. Many of the linear ridges mental architecture at other important Research, Volume 73, number 4, pp. 647-696. that radiate outwards are aligned with sites! Many of these alignments are to See this paper for sources of all maps and celestial events that are recurrent or other Belle Glade earthworks in the photos used in this article. cyclical, such as the solstices and equinoxes we see each year. Such alignments reveal a To visit Fort Center, go to the Fisheating Creek Wildlife Management Area, knowledge of the relationships among which is operated by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation landscape, animal patterns, time, and the Commission. For information and directions, follow this link: all-important water levels across the landscape. The spring equinox marks the http://myfwc.com/viewing/recreation/wmas/lead/fi sheating-creek/planning-your-visit/ 2 Randell Research Center Restored parcel explodes with native plants, wildlife by Bill Marquardt As our readers know, fi ve acres of land were added to the Randell Research Center in 2015 thanks to the generous support of Tim and Judith Sear and the Calusa Land Trust. Grants from RRC members and the Felburn Foundation for invasive vegetation removal and from the A Gulf fritillary butterfl y (Agraulis vanilla) Florida Humanities Council for public inter- gathers nectar from a scorpion’s-tail plant pretation made it possible to open an (Heliotropium angiospermum) growing in the extension of the Calusa Heritage Trail in understory of a restored area on the edge of the In 2015, the Calusa-dug canal around the March, 2017 (see RRC Newsletter, June Smith Mound canal. (Photo by Laura Coglan.) Smith Mound was choked with vegetation and 2015; June 2016; and September 2017). effectively invisible. Native vegetation and Smith Mound, its surrounding canal, and wildlife are returning. (Photo by Charles O’Connor.) When we acquired the property, it the Low Mound. Thanks to the initial was dominated by Brazilian pepper clearing and to weekly maintenance work Wildlife that depends on these native (Schinus terebinthifolia), earleaf acacia by our volunteers, not only have the plants is also returning. If you have not (Acacia auriculiformis), invasive non-native plants been controlled, visited the newly added property lately, and other non-native but native plants are emerging through- please do so on your next visit to Pineland. invasive plants that out the property at an astounding rate. You will be amazed. had obscured the ground and blocked all visual access to the Understory native plants, such as American beautyberry (Callicarpa americana), American pokeweed The native toothpetal (Phytolacca americana), and rougeplant orchid (Habaneria (Rivina humilis), as well as the native odontopetalum) now vines possum grape (Cissus sp.) and thrives near the canal creeping cucumber (Melothria pendula) surrounding the Smith are returning in the drier part of the Mound. (Photo by William parcel away from the Smith Mound and Marquardt.) canal. (Photo by Charles O’Connor.) New and Renewing Friends of the RRC November 16, 2017 to February 15, 2018 Please let us know of any errors or omissions. Thank you for your support. * = donated goods and services. Patrons Sponsoring Members Lee & Jeff Horowitz Wayne Hinnant David T. Glick ($100,000 and above) ($500-$999) Cathy House Larkin & Barbara Hosmer Jeanne Gossman E.L. Roy Hunt Martha & David Huard Nancy Green Joseph T. 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