Key Marco (archaeological site)
Key Marco is an archaeological site located on Marco Island, Florida, within the cluster of islands known as the Ten Thousand Islands. Excavations at this site began in 1895 and revealed a wealth of artifacts that provide insight into the lives of its prehistoric inhabitants. The site features a courtyard surrounded by shell mounds, where organic materials such as wood, fiber, and bone were preserved due to the acidic conditions of the muck. Notable discoveries include the Key Marco Cat, a wooden statuette of a feline, and various ceremonial masks, as well as ingeniously crafted tools made from local materials. The culture of Key Marco is recognized for its artistic sophistication and advanced technology, employing tools like shark tooth adzes and barracuda jaw rasps. Radiocarbon dating indicates that the site was occupied from around 750 AD until just before the arrival of Spanish explorers in the 1500s. The inhabitants are believed to be affiliated with the Calusa tribe, known for their complex society and interactions with the surrounding ecosystem. Artifacts reveal a diet consisting of fish, shellfish, and various local plants, reflecting a deep connection to the region's natural resources.
Key Marco (archaeological site)
Category: Archaeological site
Date: c. 750-1500
Location: West coast of Florida
Cultures affected: Calusa, Glades
Key Marco (also called Marco Island) is the largest of the group of islands off the southwest coast of Florida called the Ten Thousand Islands; it lies a few miles south of the mainland city of Naples. Beginning in 1895, a site at the north end of the island—a sort of courtyard surrounded by shell mounds—was excavated by Frank Hamilton Cushing and others, and a variety of artifacts were uncovered. Their method was to strain the acidic, tannin-filled muck of the courtyard, which had preserved the organic materials of the tools and ceremonial objects. This was fortunate, as only wood, fiber, bone, and shell (no stone or metal) were available to the Key Marco dwellers, and the first two would not have survived if exposed to the Florida climate.
The culture reconstructed from the finds at Key Marco was sophisticated and technologically advanced. The artistic and ceremonial items are executed with a sure hand and a sensitive stylization. Probably the best-known of these items is a wooden statuette of a feline figure now in the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, but there are other animal effigies, wooden face masks (possibly ceremonial), wooden tablets with both incised and painted decorations, and a variety of personal ornaments of wood and shell, most of them strikingly beautiful. The tools that produced these objects are technologically ingenious, with adzes using shark teeth as cutting edges, rasps made of barracuda jaws, and various cutting and shaping tools of wood, bone, and shell. Spear handles are present; apparently the spear thrower, or atlatl, was used. Cordage was well constructed and ranged in thickness from thread up to one-inch rope. Fishing nets with wood or gourd floats and shell sinkers confirm that one of the dietary staples was the mullet of the surrounding waters. Also eaten were shellfish, turtle, alligator, and a variety of roots and berries.
Radiocarbon dating suggests that the Key Marco site was occupied from about 750 until just before Spanish exploration of the area, about 1500. The Indians of Key Marco were probably part of the Calusa tribe that covered south Florida.