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We love our Calusa Indians!

Long before Florida had highways connecting its coasts, the Calusa people had already mastered the water. 🐚 Known as the "Shell Indians," they built an entire civilization along Florida's southwest coast without ever needing agriculture, relying instead on the incredible abundance of the sea.
The Calusa constructed massive shell mounds, some rising several stories high, that served as ceremonial centers, homes, and even canals for their canoes. Spanish explorers who encountered them in the 1500s described a powerful, highly organized society with its own political structure and military strength, one that successfully resisted colonization for generations longer than most other native peoples in the region. Their engineering, still visible in mounds scattered across islands near Fort Myers and Marco Island today, remains a quiet testament to a civilization built entirely around understanding and respecting the water around them.
It's humbling to think an entire empire once rose from oyster shells and saltwater instead of stone and soil. 🌊
What do you think it took to build a civilization entirely around the sea?