I love this sort of thing! Being the curious person that I am, I had to research the Tequesta tribe and found something very interesting. Wiki article posted below. I highlighted the part I found interesting. BTW I think they should absolutely preserve this site!

Questions of preservation after ancient village found in downtown Miami

(CNN) -- At the heart of a $600 million complex of Miami condominium and office towers, a network of holes in the ground has provided new insight into the people who were there first.

The holes lay out the foundations of a prehistoric settlement of the ancient Tequesta tribe at the confluence of the Miami River and Biscayne Bay. The Tequesta lived in what's now metro Miami until the 1700s, and the holes held pine posts that framed their thatched buildings.

"We got to the point in recent months where we realized this wasn't an isolated circle or structure but a whole complex of buildings," said archaeologist Bob Carr, whose company was hired to conduct a historical analysis of the building site. The settlement is likely to have been home to hundreds of people, perhaps as many as 1,000.

"In some ways, I would say it's probably the best-preserved prehistoric town plan in eastern North America," Carr said.

Since October, his team has unearthed several thousand holes carved into the limestone that makes up Miami's bedrock. In addition to the circular layouts, the team found linear structures Carr said may have been boardwalks for the waterfront settlement.

The site also houses the foundations of the Royal Palm Hotel, one of the resorts built by legendary Florida developer Henry Flagler in the late 19th century. But the post holes and various pieces of pottery recovered at the site over the years date back to 500-600 B.C., Carr said.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/02/04/us/florid ... Stories%29

Tequesta


The Tequesta (also Tekesta, Tegesta, Chequesta, Vizcaynos) Native American tribe, at the time of first European contact, occupied an area along the southeastern Atlantic coast of Florida. They had infrequent contact with Europeans and had largely disappeared by the middle of the 18th century.

The Tequesta tribe lived on Biscayne Bay [1] in what is now Miami-Dade County and at least the southern half of Broward County. Their territory may have also included the northern half of Broward County. They also occupied the Florida Keys at times, and may have had a village on Cape Sable, at the southern end of the Florida peninsula, in the 16th century.
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The Tequesta were more or less dominated by the more numerous Calusa of the southwest coast of Florida. The Tequesta were closely allied to their immediate neighbors to the north, the Jaega.[3] Estimates of the number of Tequesta at the time of initial European contact range from 800 to 10,000, while estimates of the number of Calusa on the southwest coast of Florida range from 2,000 to 20,000. Occupation of the Florida Keys may have swung back and forth between the two tribes. Although Spanish records note a Tequesta village on Cape Sable, Calusa artifacts outnumber Tequesta artifacts by four to one at its archaeological sites.
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When Spain surrendered Florida to Britain in 1763, the remaining Tequestas, along with other Indians that had taken refuge in the Florida Keys, were evacuated to Cuba.[13] In the 1770s, Bernard Romans reported seeing abandoned villages in the area, but no inhabitants.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tequesta

IOW, many Cubans are probably descendants of Florida Native Americans. No wonder they want to come to Florida!(besides the obvious proximity thing and escape from the government) It's their homeland. I didn't know that many Native Americans were sent to Cuba.

Think there's a pissed off developer in the background?

Could be oskar, here in Britain though this tends to be a constant hazard of development as this damp grey little collection of islands seems to have been an attractive place to live since at least the Ice age before last. In places like York they have real problem. The agreed solution seems to be excavate what you can under a legally granted moratorium from development then go ahead but to carefully preserve and map what is there for future generations to excavate (we don't tend to build 1000 year buildings much these days.)