Indian Mounds - Charlotte Harbor
(By Mac Perry)
In
Lee County,
you’ll be in the heart of Calusa territory. Surely you’ll want to see
where Chief Carlos himself lived. His magnificent Temple Town is today
called Mound Key and sits on an island in the middle of Estero Bay
southeast of Ft. Myers Beach. Go there and see the twin temple mounds of
Carlos, one 28 feet high the other a whopping 40 feet high, as well as the
barely discernable canal that ran between them. The water courts on the
northeast side are fantastic. You can tour this famous site by hooking up
with Arden Arrington at (941) 994-3286. He takes groups out to the site by
boat.
Then take the bridge across to beautiful Sanibel Island, collect a few
shells from the famous seashell beach, and proceed to the Ding Darling
National Wildlife Refuge. Enjoy the visitor center, foot trails,
observation tower, and five mile wildlife drive through a watery habitat
where thousands of seabirds live and breed (take your camera and
binoculars.) At the north end of the wildlife drive you’ll come to Shell Mound Trail, a winding boardwalk that leads you through a mangrove and
mastic jungle where thickets of sanseveria and wild air plants grow on the
shell middens left hundreds of years ago by the Calusa.
If you drive north on Stringfellow Road on nearby Pine Island, you'll
come to the site of a major archaeological investigation conducted by the
Florida Museum of Natural History's Dr. Bill Marquardt and his team of
experts (both photos.) This site was visited by Cushing in
1895 who spoke of foundations, mounds, courts, graded ways, and canals.
There are two large mounds there today with the remnants of a canal
between them, as if built on the same plan as Mound Key. (Did the Indians
have architects in those days?) The mounds started to build up after AD
500. A remnant of a midden can be seen on the south side that dates to
about AD 500 to 700 also, and a large oval burial mound sits on the east
side and has the remains of a moat around it. The most amazing thing at
the Pineland Site are the remnants of the hand-dug canal 6 to 8
feet deep and 30 feet wide that aerial photos show once ran 2½ miles
across the island. The Calusa were canal builders, as is evidenced by a
number of canals in SW Florida. Tours of the site are available by
contacting the Randell Research Center on Pine Island at (941)
283-2062.
While in Lee County be sure to visit the Children’s Science Center at
2915 Northeast Pine Island Road, the Museum of the Islands on Stringfellow
Road, the Ft. Meyers Historical Museum in the Atlantic Coastline Railroad
Depot east of US 41 and south of state road 82, the Useppa Island
Historical Society on Useppa Island
and the Calusa Nature Center and Planetarium 3450 Ortiz Ave in Ft. Myers.
There are a
number of impressive mounds in Charlotte County but none are open
for public visitation. There is the 15-foot Cash Mound that dates
from AD 700 to 1500, Bay Three, a salt water midden containing
numerous fresh water shells, the strange looking John Quiet Mound
with five circular ridges that may have served as shellfish unloading and
processing stations, and Big Mound Key that covers 37 acres and has
semi-circular ridges like the John Quiet Mound. Because storm tides,
hurricanes, and looters using bulldozers have caused extensive damage to
these and other Charlotte County mounds sitting on US government property,
they are heavily guarded, and trespassers might expect big fines or jail
sentences. So stay away and keep your visits to the public sites. I do,
however, recommend the Charlotte Harbor Environmental Center at Alligator
Creek at 10944 Burnt Store Road in Punta Gorda.
Of all the Indian Mounds in Sarasota County, my favorite is Spanish Point on US 41 just north of Osprey. There is so much here to see and
learn. This site was occupied by Florida Indians before Genesis 12 when
Abraham began his famous trek to the Promised Land. Park and follow the
stony trail beneath shading mastic trees to the burial mound that was in
use between AD 300—800. Nearly fifty years ago, archaeologists excavated
400 burials (including four dogs and an alligator), 9000 pieces of broken
pottery, a flute made from a human thigh bone, numerous shell tools, and
52 fossilized shark’s teeth (Indian knives.) Take the trail’s left
fork and you’ll cross over the midden left by the Indians who built the
burial mound. You’ll also see a ten-foot square test pit dug by the
archaeologists, the cemetery of the Webb family who homesteaded the
property in 1867, their citrus packing house, and a small chapel. The
right fork leads you along the ridge on top of an older midden that juts
out into the bay. Dating between 300 BC and AD 150, this mound now holds a
classroom museum, pergola and sunken garden, and a grotto that houses an
interpretive center and cut-away view of the midden. Then follow the
footbridge to the aqueduct, guest cottage, fern garden, and
horseshoe-shaped Hill Midden. Here, archaeologists found the usual post
holes, ashes, shells, and pottery. But in the bottom half of the test pit,
they found something very unusual — no pottery. That meant the first
people who started this midden did so before pottery came to Florida,
before 2000 BC, before Abraham took the high road out of Ur. Look down
into the test pit and try to imagine what life was like in Florida 4000
years ago. While our race has been here barely 300 years, the now-extinct
Indians lived at Spanish Point for 3000 years. Today they are extinct.
One additional mound in Sarasota is worth visiting. It’s at Indian Mound Park. From Englewood’s Deerborn Street, head south on Magnolia
Avenue. Along the gulf you’ll find an interpretive sign and a foot trail
that winds back and forth across the shell midden. Plants on the mound
include towering oaks, wild coffee, myrsine and marlberry once used as
Indian tobacco, coontie from which the Indians extracted bread flour, and
cabbage palm that gave them "heart of palm." This 320-foot-long
mound ridge stands about six feet at the high point. Archaeologists
excavated 27,000 pieces of broken pottery and dated the site from 1000 BC
to AD 1350.
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