A REAL-LIFE ATLANTIS EXISTED IN FLORIDA, AND IT WAS RULED BY FISH
Contributed by
Elizabeth Rayne
@quothravenrayne
Apr 3, 2020
Maybe Aquaman wasn’t wielding his trident there, but the southern coast of Florida was once a different kind of Atlantis.
The Calusa people couldn’t breathe underwater. Their kingdom was not made of underwater castles. What they did do was defy assumptions of how ancient seaside civilizations not only survived, but thrived on the fish that sustained them for centuries (Calusa means “fierce people,” after all). But wait. How could a tribe who relied on fish as their main food source store them all before they started rotting? Now a new discovery has brought the answer to the surface.
Seashells were everything to the Calusa. They were thought to be the first people to collect shells, using them as tools or utensils or weapons, wearing them as jewelry and decorating their shrines with them. Entire cities were built on mounds of mud and shells. What other landlocked tribes might have left behind in pottery, the Calusa left in shells. William Marquardt, curator emeritus of South Florida Archaeology and Ethnography at the Florida Museum of Natural History, and his research team discovered that shells were also used to build structures called watercourts where fish were kept alive before being eaten.
“What makes the Calusa different is that most other societies that achieve this level of complexity and power are principally farming cultures,” said Marquardt, who recently published a study in PNAS. “For a long time, societies that relied on fishing, hunting and gathering were assumed to be less advanced … [but] the Calusa developed a politically complex society with sophisticated architecture, religion, a military, specialists, long-distance trade and social ranking — all without being farmers.”
At least without being farmers on land. The way they farmed fish was remarkable. Oyster shells were the foundation of watercourts. The largest of these rectangular structures had 36,000 square feet of storage room and were guarded by embankments of shells and sediment around three feet high. It wasn’t as easy as just throwing fish in there for a few hours until it was time for dinner. Keeping these watercourts going required an advanced understanding of the changes in tides from day to night and season to season. The Calusa had thorough knowledge of hydrology, or the study of water and all its properties and behaviors. Hydrology requires a knowledge of the water cycle, from inflows and outflows to evaporation, rain and back again.
More:
https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/a-real-life-atlantis-existed-in-florida
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