The Historical Society of Avon ParkAVON PARK, FL · EST. 1886
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Belle Glade Culture

Definition

The archaeological culture of the Lake Okeechobee basin and the Kissimmee River valley, dated roughly 1000 BC to AD 1700. Its recognized territory takes in parts of Highlands, Polk, Osceola, Okeechobee, Glades, Hendry, Martin and Palm Beach counties — which places Avon Park and the southern Lake Wales Ridge inside it.[wiki-belle-glade]

“Belle Glade” is an archaeologist’s label, applied from pottery types and site forms, not a name any of these people used for themselves. It should be described that way in public writing.

Chronology

Conventionally divided into four phases: Belle Glade I (1000 BC to AD 200), II (AD 200 to 600 or 800), III (AD 600 or 800 to 1200 or 1400), and IV (AD 1200 or 1400 to 1700).[butler-lawres-blueberry] A 1996 study used ceramic seriation and radiocarbon dates from the Kissimmee River valley, which forms Highlands County’s eastern boundary, to extend this chronology into that basin and tie it to the Okeechobee heartland.[austin-1996-seriation]

How these people lived

They did not farm. Subsistence on the ridge and its lake margins rested on hunting deer, gray squirrel, alligator and gopher tortoise, and on fish, aquatic turtles and wild plant foods.[fwc-ridge-history] Belle Glade sites on the ridge cluster around lakes and seep springs.[fwc-ridge-history] The culture is known for earthworks — mounds, linear embankments and ditches — and its most studied expression is the Fort Center ceremonial complex on Fisheating Creek in Glades County, whose drainage rises in Highlands County.[fisheating-creek]

In Highlands County

The clearest local example identified so far is the Blueberry site in the southeast of the county, reported to contain at least three earthen mounds and a linear ridge, with ceramics, imported stone, red ocher, trade goods and animal bone, spanning the whole Belle Glade sequence. That description comes from a summary of the 2014 study rather than the study itself and needs confirming.[butler-lawres-blueberry]

Further Belle Glade sites are recorded on the Avon Park Air Force Range. Their locations are deliberately not published here.

References

Where this comes from

Evidence
single-source — One source. Treat as reported, not established.
Review
unverified — Drafted from sources but not yet checked by a volunteer.
Rights
society

Sources

  1. Wikipedia, Belle Glade culture (2026)
  2. David M. Butler and Nathan R. Lawres, Modeling Belle Glade Lithic Use Behaviors: A Case Study from Highlands County (The Florida Anthropologist 67, 2014), consulted secondhand (2014)
  3. Robert J. Austin, Ceramic Seriation, Radiocarbon Data, and Subsistence Data from the Kissimmee River Valley (The Florida Anthropologist 49:2), identified by citation only (1996)
  4. Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, Lake Wales Ridge: History (2026)
  5. Florida Wildlife Corridor Foundation, Fisheating Creek Ecosystem (2026)

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