It is impossible to assign definite limits to the area occupied by the
tribes of this family. From documentary testimony of the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries the limits of the family domain appear to have
been about as follows: In general terms the present northern limits of
the State of Florida may be taken as the northern frontier, although
upon the Atlantic side Timuquanan territory may have extended into
Georgia. Upon the northwest the boundary line was formed in De Soto’s
time by the Ocilla River. Lake Okeechobee on the south, or as it was
then called Lake Sarrape or Mayaimi, may be taken as the boundary
between the Timuquanan tribes proper and the Calusa province upon the
Gulf coast and the Tegesta province upon the Atlantic side. Nothing
whatever of the languages spoken in these two latter provinces is
available for comparison. A number of the local names of these provinces
given by Fontanedo (1559) have terminations similar to many of the
Timuquanan local names. This slender evidence is all that we have from
which to infer the Timuquanan relationship of the southern end of the
peninsula.