Ferguson, Leland G.

Through controlled stratigraphic excavations, surface collections and
published reports, a coastal Belle Glade settlement pattern and cultural
complex is reconstructed. This site was continually occupied
for a period of about 1,000 years. A population increase and an increase
in socio-political complexity coincides with a change in the
subsistence base at this complex during the Glades I period. This
same economic change is noted in many middens along the Florida east
coast and is believed to have been caused by the introduction of agriculture.
This was accompanied by a religious movement in which mound
construction and burial within these mounds were practiced. The
diffusion of this economic-ceremonial complex was from the Lake
Okeechobee area where it developed during the Hopewell period.

Through intensive analysis of use/wear indicators the tool kit of
the little known Belle Glade culture of South Florida has been
reconstructed. From this, we recognize a highly sophisticated
technology which can be divided into specialized, generalized and
ceremonial artifacts. All of these were utilized either directly
or in support of Hopewellian ceremonialism. This, plus a preliminary
analysis of the site plan indicates that one area of the site was
the residence of the ceremonial practitioner, a second was a charnel
house, while a third was the village area where craftsmen who
fashioned ceremonial objects lived with their families.