Neptune Shell Ring

When you wear the Neptune Shell Ring, you are tapping into the ocean’s power and natural balance. Channeling the intimacy and mighty force of water, this is a soothing talisman that will help you navigate life’s challenges.

Native Americans created numerous shell rings — large circular or arcing middens that encircle open plazas — along the Atlantic coastal Southeast during the Late Archaic period (4800-3200 cal. B.P). While archaeologists have extensively studied how Early Archaic peoples constructed and used these long-lasting constructions, less attention has been given to later occupants’ interactions with these sites. Our research at the Sea Pines Shell Ring reveals how one such site was reused for more than a millennium after its initial construction by the cremation of animal bones, possibly including human remains.

A key to understanding these settlements is determining the social organization of groups that built them. Smaller rings appear to have formed accidentally through the incidental discard of food refuse alongside households, while larger rings likely resulted from rapid accumulating of shells and other debris following feasts. The South Bluff Heritage Preserve is a good place to investigate this phenomenon because it holds the southernmost documented occurrence of these types of shell rings.

The prevailing idea is that these rings served as communal spaces for ceremonial activities, much like town squares. However, our excavations at the Sea Pines Shell Ring reveal that these massive middens were also places of daily life and even burial. shell ring