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The Domain of the Calusa is an award-winning documentary program about South Florida's Calusa Indians: the native coastal Indians of southwest Florida. Named "Best Documentary" by the Louis Wolfson II Media History Center in 1996, this exciting program introduces a powerful, complex, and artistic Native American society with which few Americans are familiar, even in Florida.

The Calusa -- a people whose dominion stretched from the Atlantic to the Gulf, from Lake Okeechobee to the Florida Keys. A people whose impressive earthworks, engineered canals, elaborate ceremonies, and intricate art were built on a foundation not of farming but fishing. A people who understood the land and waters so well that they prospered for over a thousand years without ever having a disastrous impact on their environment.

Archaeological sites left by the Calusa and their predecessors dot the southwest Florida coast, yet little has been known of these people until recently. Venture once again into the Domain of the Calusa. Witness the intrigue and conflict as sixteenth-century Spanish ambition collides with the indomitable Calusa spirit. Follow anthropologist Frank Cushing to the steaming mangrove muck of Key Marco in 1896, as he excavates one of the most remarkable collections of Native American artifacts ever found. Join today's archaeologists, who are striving to restore the lost heritage of the mysterious Calusa as they learn lessons that may help today's people.

ISBN 1-881448-05-3; VHS format, run time: 29:15.

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