Traditional Ecological Knowledge of Coral Reef Small Islands: A History of Human Adaptation in the Florida Keys

Summary

The Florida Keys have been largely overlooked in models of social interactions within both Florida and the greater Caribbean. Environmentally and culturally distinctive, the more than 1700 islands that make up this coral reef archipelago are consistently viewed from the mainland in models of human-environmental dynamics over time. This paper synthesizes available archeological data on the prehistoric human occupation of the Florida Keys with attention to the island landscapes of these sites that are unique within Florida prehistory as well as elements shared with coastal sites throughout the region.

Recent new research documents the many ways Keys sites demonstrate different ecological and subsistence systems in comparison to the rest of the Glades culture area, with a greater reliance on vertebrates over invertebrates perhaps as an outgrowth of the deep water environment of the archipelago. This paper points toward possible ways to address new questions through attention to the intentional management of the rich natural resources of the Keys and adjacent regions by a population well-adapted to a delicate balance of marine and coastal relationships.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 81st Annual Meeting, Orlando, FL (2016)   •
• Human-Environmental Dynamics on the Atlantic Coast of North America

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