Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-04-01
BONES OF EXTINCT
FLOR|DANS DUG UP
WarIike CaIusas, Who Fought
Off De Soto, Studied
by EthnoIogist.
BY THOMAS r. HENRY.

| Approximately 800 human skulls,
representing an extinct and peculiar
people who lived in Southern Florida
at the time of the first white explorers,
have been brought back to Washington
by Mathew w. Stirling, chief of the
Bureau of American Enthnology, after
q three months exploration.
Alive and warlike late in the sixteenth
century, Stirling believes, these people
had more massive lower jaws than any
race now living. They were the Calusa
Indians, whose ferocity prevented the
Spaniards from settling the west coast
of Florida and who almost wiped out
the De Sofa expedition.
Reared Strange Temples.
Apparently driven southwark by the
more advanced Indian peoples who in
vaded Northern Florida, they finally
vanished in a region so nearly impene
trable that 1t still is almost unexplored.
| This is the thousand Islands region
of the West Florida coast, legendary
hiding place of pirates. Here, rearing
| temples to strange gods on artificial
hills and burying their dead, layer upon
layer, in great mounds, they spent the
last years Of racial existence.
Strings excavations were near the
,, village of Safety Harbor. which appears
Calusas before they disappeared into
the swamps. Here he found fiat-top
mound Of seashells, about IS feet high,
upon which the Indians had built a
religious ediice of some kind. There
are no traces of this structure. Such a
temple was described in the journal of
De Soto Around were smaller mounds
of shell and bone, evidently the refuse
heaps of the village. About a foot OF
soil, covered with vegetation, had accu-
mulated on top Of the shells through
the centuries.
The sea is cutting into the great
mound, leaving exposed vertical sur
face. The sea has washed out great
numbers of Calusa artifacts, mostly
pottery and shell and stone tools, which
Stirling collected.
A mile to the west he found the
burial mound Of the village, one Of the
largest yet discovered in Florida. It
was high, dome-shaped structure, sur
rounded with a circular depression in
the sand, like q moat. In this mound
approximately 500 skeletons were buried
The first layer of burials was about IS
feet from the bottom. Other layers
followed at intervals Of 5 feet. y
Few Complete Skeletons.
Stirling collected all the bones he
could flnd. There were few complete
skeletons. The mound was evidently a
place Of secondary burials, skeletons
having been torn apart and the bones
arranged in neat bundles. Only about
| SO of the recovered skulls are In q good
state of preservation.
| Strictly speaking, Stirling says the
mound burials were not burials at all.
The skeletons were laid on top Of the
| mound, possibly for religious reasons.
Than ralaffuaa narriad 1,VN sand Az hae-
kets and poured 1t over them. Some Of
the skeletons were covered with heavy
boulders. These, he says, probably were
those of important people Of the tribe.
Unlike many primitive peoples, the Ca
lusas did not bury food with the dead
to supply them during their long jour-
ney to the world of spirits. They did,
however, place pots Of food around the
edges Of the mound FOR the same pur-
pose. These pots have long since been
smashed. Stirling recovered hundreds
Of chards, or pottery fragments, and
believes he can reconstruct some COM
plete ones.
Choice personal possessions we're
| buried with the dead. The mound EVIL
IDENTIFY was constructed after the Ca
lusas came in contact with Europeans.
The skull of one giant skeleton rested
| upon an iron ak Of peculiar shape.
Clasped tightly between the teeth Of a
woman's skeleton was long silver bead
Mixed with other bones were stone
knives and arrowheads.
One Of the recovered skeletons ap-
pears to have been that Of .Calusa
4 medicine man, whose objects Of sorcery
were buried with him. Originally.
| Stirling believes, they we're contained in
q leather pouch which long since has
BECOME dust. They included q bit of
sandstone, shaped naturally like duck;
| fossil bone heavy as iron, two casts
Of fossil clans, and a peculiar clay OBJ;
ject. All these were brightly polished
from constant use by the sorcerer in
his professional practice.
The village site nearby yielded many
! artifacts, including fragments of pots,
smoking pipes and bone and shell i'm
plements.
Stirling also found typical Calusa
sites on Horrs Island, and a North
Florida Indian site at the head of the
Withlacoochee River, both of which
yielded skeletons and cultural material.
populous, Stirling believes. Shellfish
was the chief food article, and the
population was limited by the supply.
The Indians also did some fishing and
hunting and raised corn. In their
battles with the white men, Stirling
says, they usually were the victors. but
they probably became extinct through
some epidemic disease which they ac-
quired from the whites and for which
they had acquired no resistance.
Eventually Stirling hopes to estab-
| lish a chronological sequence for the
Indians OF the Southeast such as has
been established for the Southwest.
/
L Madrid hoe the hi0taaek oIkff,1la ~