ARTIFICIAL SHELL DEPOSITS OF THE UNITED 



STATES. 



BY D. G. BRINTON, M. D., OF WEST CHESTER, PA 



In the annual Smithsonian report for 1864, (pp. 370-374,) a description is 

 given of an artificial shell deposit in Monmouth county, New Jersey. As this 

 branch of American Archneology is of importance to both geologists and antiqua- 

 rians, the following notes upon it may be of value to the students of each of these 

 sciences. The exclusively artificial character of many of these deposits, even 

 of very considerable size, was first prominently brought before the scientific 

 public by Mr. Lardner Vanuxem, in the proceedings of the American Association 

 of Geologists and Naturalists for lS40-'42, (pp. 21-23.) The existence of 

 enormous accumulations of the shellii of the Ostrea virginica and Ven/us mer- 

 cenaria on the shores of the Chesapeake and its affluent streams, on the Jersey 

 shore and Long Island, was discussed, and various proofs of their formation by 

 the aboriginal tribes pointed out. These proofs may be briefly summed up as 

 follows : First. Valves of the same animal are rarely found together. Second. 

 Arrow-heads, fragnients of pottery, and charcoal are mixed with the shells in 

 situ naturali. Third. The shells are broken, and frequently charred. Fourth. The 

 substratum of the deposit is the same as the surrounding soil. Fifth. The deposits 

 are at the mouth and shores of water-courses, where the shell-fish abound. 

 Sixth. There is an absence of stratification and older fossils. 



It seems hardly necessary to adduce evidence from the old voyagers to show 

 that in the commissariat of the native coast tribes esculent shell-fish constituted 

 an important item. Cabeza de Vaca describes the accolents of the Gulf of 

 Mexico as dwelling in houses of mats, " built on heaps of oyster shells," (Ra- 

 musio Viaggi, torn. Ill, fol. 317,) and the first settlers of Maryland record, 

 with pleasurable recollections, the " oisters, broil'd and stewed," that the sav- 

 ages offered them in profusion. — (Relation of Maryland, 1634, p. 18, in Shea's 

 Southern Tracts.) 



By far the majority of these monuments of a past race are mere refuse heaps, 

 the debris of villages of an icthyophagous population, showing no indications 

 of having been designedly collected in heaps, true analogues of the kjoekken- 

 moeddings of the age of stone ; but in other instances it would appear that the 

 Indians collected them into artificial mounds, forming a class of antiquities here- 

 tofore unnoticed by archaeologists. They are found in great numbers along the 

 southern coast, especially in Georgia and Florida, where I have examined many 

 of them. At the landing of Fernandina, on Amelia island, the summit of the 

 bluff is covered with a layer of artificially deposited shells, extending about 

 two hundred yards upon the bay and one-fourth of a mile inland, varying in 

 depth from one to four feet. The shells are in many places so rotten as to fall 

 to pieces at the touch, some showing fractures made at the edges, as if in opening, 

 while others have obviously been subjected to the action of fire. Charcoal, bones 

 of fish and animals, and arrow-heads are scattered irregularly through the mass. 

 This is the general character of many such deposits that I have examined in 

 other parts of the peninsula of Florida ; for instance, on both banks of the St. 

 John's, at its mouth, on Anastasia island, opposite St. Augustine, on the Manatee 



