Shell ring
type of shell mound
Shell rings are archaeological sites with curved shell middens completely or partially surrounding a clear space. The rings were sited next to estuaries that supported large populations of shellfish, usually oysters. Shell rings have been reported in several countries, including Colombia, Peru, Japan, and the southeastern United States. Archaeologists continue to debate the origins and use of shell rings.
Across what is now the southeastern United States, starting around 4000 BCE, people exploited wetland resources, creating large shell middens. Middens developed along rivers, but there is limited evidence of Archaic peoples along coastlines prior to 3000 BCE. Archaic sites on the coast may have been inundated by rising sea levels (one site in 15 to 20 feet of water off St. Lucie County, Florida has been dated to 2800 BCE). Starting around 3000 BCE evidence of large-scale exploitation of oysters appears. During the period 3000 BCE to 1000 BCE shell rings, large shell middens more or less surrounding open centers, developed along the coast of the Southeastern United States. These shell rings are numerous in South Carolina and Georgia, but are also found scattered around the Florida peninsula.
“Shell ring” enters the record as type of shell mound. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Shell, ring and type can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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This entry incorporates text from “Shell ring” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.