Prehistoric mortuary practices in the Everglades cultural area, Florida

Archaeological data on mortuary practices in the Everglades cultural area of southeastern Florida from the Late Archaic (2000 B.C.-500 B.C.) through the Formative period (500 B.C.-A.D. 1750) are synthesized in order to document development of the chiefdom organization known ethnographically for the historic Tequesta Indians. Site and burial data are drawn from published and unpublished documents and analyzed using Binford's (1971) models which predict sociopolitical organization from mortuary evidence for individual status and rank. Results indicate the presence of a non-egalitarian social structure with inherited status in the Late Archaic period followed by a ranked sociopolitical organization in the Glades II-III periods.