ABSTRACT
In the Southeast, extraordinarily large, complex cultures inhabited the woodlands that run in an arc from Virginia south and west to Texas (see Fig. 12.1). Spanish explorers called the entire Southeast La Florida. Most Southeastern cultures are characterized by agriculture and complex political and social organizations-several are the most complex in North America-and large, sedentary populations; as many as 1,250,000 people lived in the Southeast in the year 1500 (Hudson 1997:425). Not all Southeast groups practiced agriculture, however. The Calusa in southern Florida, for example, were hunters and gatherers, obtaining most of their food from the ocean. Nevertheless, their culture was also quite large and complex and, like many groups in the Southeast, had a chiefdom-level organization.
