The Calusa tribe occupied a large area of the Southwest coast of Florida from the area west of Lake Okeechobee down to Cape Sable. The tribe was organized as a Chiefdom and was composed of many small villages, each containing a chief. Many of these villages were located along the 10,000 islands. This coastal group utilized the resources around them for subsistence. They depended mostly on fishing and some strategic foraging for foodstuffs. Their tools were made from shells, and other resources that could be found and manipulated. Tools such as hammers, picks, and scrapers were made by creating small holes in conch, clam, and oyster shells and placing a stick within to form a handle. These were used for digging, hammering, picking, fishing, and performing other tasks. Fish bone and shark teeth were also utilized to create tools. Additionally, shells were used for making jewelry, ornaments.
The discarded tools and leftover shells emptied of foodstuffs were piled to create shell works. Shell works are large-scale, planned formations of piled oyster shells that formed built villages. It is unknown what their primary purpose may have been, but archaeologists suggest that the shell works separated domestic and public from sacred spaces. Shell deposits were formed to create high ridges, mounds, crescents, platforms, canals and courtyards. According to William Morgan, author of Precolumbian Architecture in Eastern North America, these works created networks linking communities and resources, as well as dividing separate zones of space.