ASK THE MUSEUM: Who Lived Here Before Boca Raton Existed?

People were living along and using the Boca Raton coastline long before there was a town called Boca Raton. Native people known as the Glades people used this area as early as approximately 2,000 years ago. The environment provided them with a variety of resources from the ocean, lagoons, estuaries, reefs, wetlands, and surrounding habitats. They caught fish, collected shellfish, hunted deer and smaller game, gathered plants, and took advantage of sea turtles nesting along the beach.

The Glades people also created tools from materials found in their environment. Wood, bone, shell, and clay could all be transformed into useful implements. The shell of the queen conch was especially important and could be shaped into tools including axes, chisels, celts, and adzes.

Boca Raton’s Glades people were also part of a much larger Indigenous history stretching across South Florida. Archaeology has helped reveal the lives and relationships with Indigenous peoples throughout the region, including the Tequesta, Jéga, Calusa, and later the Seminole. These communities were not isolated from one another. South Florida was part of a broader cultural landscape in which people traveled, traded, adapted, and maintained connections across coastal and inland areas.

Archaeology is especially important in telling these early stories because much of this history predates the written documents historians typically rely upon. Artifacts, archaeological sites, environmental evidence, and the places where people lived help researchers piece together a much deeper history of South Florida.