Notes on South Carolina and Florida Shell Rings

**by**

**Michael Russo**

**2004**

# 

## Introduction

Late Archaic shell rings dating between 4700 and 3000 [b.p.]{.smallcaps}
have been infrequently studied along the coasts of Florida, Georgia,
Louisiana, and South Carolina since the late 1800s. Shell rings are
circular to horseshoe-shaped piles of shell (primarily oyster) ranging
in size from 50 to up to 250 meters across. While shell rings contain
some of the earliest pottery in North America, the earliest rings were
actually built hundreds of years before pottery was adopted in the
region (Russo 1991; Russo and Saunders 1999).

Recent work in Florida and South Carolina has documented the size,
shape, volume, and dates of construction of a number of shell rings.
Russo and Saunders (1999), Russo et al. (2002), Saunders and Russo
(2002), and Heide (2003) have recorded the thickness of shell deposits
in rings with systematic probing. This approach has allowed for the
discovery of heretofore "invisible" portions of rings buried beneath
marsh mud, and, as well, has facilitated the calculation of shell volume
to be used for inter-site comparison. This paper compares and contrasts
three of these shell ring sites---Sewee Shell Ring, the northernmost
known ring located along the mid-Atlantic coast of South Carolina, the
Coosaw Island Shell Ring complex (consisting of four rings) in southeast
South Carolina, and the Guana River Shell Ring in northeast Florida,

***Sewee Shell Ring, South Carolina***

The Sewee Shell Ring was topographically mapped nearly forty years ago
by Edwards (1965), who placed four excavation units within the site. A
radiocarbon date of 3295 [b.p.]{.smallcaps} has been reported from the
site (Trinkley 1980:14), but the conventional age, when corrected, is
3675 [b.p.]{.smallcaps} In 2003, the Francis Marion and Sumter National
Forests contracted SEAC to develop a new topographic map as well as a
shell thickness map of the site. The map reveals an outside ring
diameter of nearly 75 meters, and that an "opening" previously mapped
the ring's eastern side (Edwards 1965), actually contains shell deposits
up to a meter thick buried beneath the marsh (Russo and Heide 2003:31),
making the ring a closed circle rather than a C-shape. Probing revealed
that as much as one quarter of the shell had been mined from the ring's
northeastern side. Since the remaining site contained about 2,900 cubic
meters of shell, we estimate that the original ring may have contained
as much as 3,900 cubic meters of shell. Two conventional radiocarbon
dates based on oyster shell from an excavation unit placed on the south
side of the ring dated to 4010 and 4120 [b.p.]{.smallcaps} All pottery
recovered both excavations (Edwards 1965; Russo and Heide 2003) is the
sand-tempered Thom's Creek or related Awendaw wares.

***The Coosaw River Shell Ring, South Carolina***

The Coosaw River Shell Ring Complex is a newly discovered site first
recorded as a single, half circle of shell (Ring 3) in 2001 (DePratter
and Green). A year later, the South Carolina Department of Natural
Resources (DNR) Heritage Trust Program purchased the and identified a
second, fully circular, ring (Ring 1) (Judge 2001). In 2002, the
Southeast Archeological Center (SEAC) of the National Park Service
mapped the site's topography and shell thickness, discovering yet two
more rings in the complex. Attached to the previously identified Ring 1
(a half circle 57 m in diameter), was an attached, fully circular ring,
Ring 2, measuring 51 m in diameter. The circular Ring 3, which lies 30
meters northwest of the conjoined Rings 1 and 2, measures 59 m in
diameter, but its size (measured by the horizontal distribution of
shell) may have been expanded, and its height, reduced by historic
plowing/borrowing. A portion of Ring 2 lies off of DNR property, as does
Ring 4, located approximately 30 meters east of it. Ring 4 has not been
mapped, but it appears to be about the same general size as the other
rings. Shell volume for the combined Rings 1 and 2 is 1483 cubic meters,
while Ring 3 is 460 cubic meters (Heide and Russo 2003). However, there
is the possibility that the volume of Ring 3 has been reduced due to
historic borrowing. The volume of Ring 4, of course, can only be roughly
estimated to lie somewhere between 500 and 600 cubic meters based on the
volume of the other rings. In addition, up to half the volume of Ring 2
appears have been lost to erosion (hence the C-shape), accounting,
perhaps, for a loss of another 500-600 cubic meters. In short, the total
volume of the rings combined seems to lie somewhere between 3,000 and
3,500 cubic meters. Ceramics are nearly all of the fiber-tempered
Stallings wares. They and radiocarbon dates place the ring complex in
the Stallings period between 3560 and 3810 [b.p.]{.smallcaps}

***The Guana River Shell Ring, Florida***

In the spring of 2001 the Northeast Florida Anthropological Society
(NEFAS) to systematically probe the entire ring at 5 meter intervals,
recording where shell was present and how deep (thick) the shell
deposits were (Russo et al. 2002). Limited excavations were conducted in
order to determine the age of the site relatively (with pottery) and
absolutely (with radiocarbon assays of shell). Probing revealed that
portions of the ring were buried beneath an otherwise level landscape,
and the map of the shell distribution showed the ring to be much longer
(170 m) and wider (150 m) than apparent from surface observation, which
Baker and Tesar (1985) estimated to be 100 meters. Volume estimates and
radiocarbon dates on shell indicate that nearly 4,000 cubic meters went
into the making of the ring between 3490 and 3860 [b.p.]{.smallcaps} The
ring was constructed by people who manufactured some of the earliest
pottery known in Florida, the fiber-tempered Orange wares.

*Florida vs. South Carolina Rings*

The most obvious differences between South Carolina and Florida rings,
including the three sites compared here, is size. Horizontally, most
Florida rings are more than three times the size of the South Carolina
rings, averaging 190 meters in greatest length/diameter versus 63 m
(Russo and Heide 2003). But the size differences may be more apparent
than real. If volumes of shell are used to measure size, the three sites
are more nearly equal with 3,900, up to 3,500, and 4,000 cubic meters
making up the Sewee, Coosaw, and Guana shell ring sites respectively. It
seems, then that the labor that went into building ring sites may have
not been distinctively different, although the shape and configurations
of the sites differ dramatically.

A number of possibilities exist to account for these design differences
found among the three ring-building cultures. With the open-ended ring
at Guana, under conditions of expanding populations, the ring could have
simply been extended outward. Whether the three cultures used rings for
ceremony in which the central plaza serving as a public arena (cf. Cable
1999; Russo and Heide 2002) or settlement (Russo n.d.; Trinkley 1997),
an open ended ring could accommodate ever-expanding
audiences/populations at the ends of the arms. In contrast, if rings are
closed circles, there is nowhere to place unplanned numbers of people,
and ring-builders would need to build additional circles for larger
populations. Multiple ring sites such as Coosa may thus represent
settlements where expanding populations fissioned from within, or
fusioning populations from without the community joined the settlement.
In either case, separate rings at multiple ring sites suggest that
sodalities, kin ties, or other factions endeavored to maintain
exclusivity at their sites, while Florida groups were more assimilating.
(Multiple ring sites are rare in Florida, the only known site being one
geographically closest to South Carolina---a cultural connection? \[cf.
Russo and Saunders 1999\].

While U-shaped rings in Florida are located with their open ends facing
dry, terrestrial environments suitable for expansion, the open C-shaped
rings in South Carolina (and Georgia) most often face environments such
as streams and tidal creeks more suitable for ingress from waterborne
visitors than the expansion of the ring. This suggests reasons for the
openness other than population accommodation. It is likely, however,
that many of the C-shaped rings in South Carolina represent former
circles diminished by erosion or other disturbance such as Coosaw Ring 1
and Sewee.

Ultimately, differences in social organization may be responsible for
the difference in approaches to ring building. Social identity,
population size, and exploitable resource area likely impacted
distribution, density, and layout of rings sites. In South Carolina 14
ring sites are found along a 150 mile section of coast line for an
average of 1 ring site every 10 miles. In Florida six ring sites and are
found along a 550 mile stretch for an average of one site every 90
miles. Population densities seem to have been less in Florida along the
coastlines, at least as reflected in ring distribution. In other words,
ring gatherers in Florida potentially pulled from a much greater natural
and demographic area to gather resources, and may have entertained more
far-flung social groups with their ceremonies held at rings. The more
open and less exclusive aspects of the U-shaped rings in Florida may
reflect reduced competition for resources than found in South Carolina.
No ring site has exhibited any evidence of warfare, but those in South
Carolina (and Georgia) are smaller, more densely packed, and more
numerous suggesting a greater population, and likely, greater
demographic stress.

In all three culture regions, social organization was tribal, that is,
organized primarily along kinship lines---but so far no evidence of
permanent, extreme social hierarchy has been identified (although
evidence of social ranking is apparent at nearly all shell rings \[Russo
n.d.\]). This is not to say Florida ring builders did not distinguish
among groups at ring sites, but they typically did so in ways other than
physically separating groups form each other in distinct rings. The
construction of mounds and the exaggerated piling of shell in preferred
locations at rings sites suggest that certain groups held more power and
prestige than other at shell rings (cf. Russo n.d., Russo and Saunders
1999; Russo et al. 2002). Similar mounding and asymmetrical distribution
of wealth (i.e., food remains) have been found at the more circular
shell rings of South Carolina (Saunders and Russo 2002), suggesting that
separation of kin groups in distinct rings was not the only settlement
design used to distinguish among community members.

If separate rings served to distinguish separate groups, one curiosity
are the numerous sites with conjoined rings. At Coosa, and other sites
in South Carolina (Fig Island and Skull Creek) and the one ring in
Florida (Rollins), two or more rings are connected to each other. Do
these linked rings serve to separate, but also indicate something of a
closer affiliation or alliance among the linked groups? Perhaps, but
lacking supporting evidence, the jury is out. Sharing a common wall
between rings may simply have been a cost-effective approach to multiple
ring building. But it is hard to imagine that any other than closely
tied groups would have adopted such a strategy. We do know that at both
Coosaw and Fig Island, linked rings were built contemporaneously
indicating that the rings were not sequential historical events, but,
rather planned constructs.

In this paper, the association of shell ring design and layout is
related to kin relations, social ranking, and social organization. While
we have stressed kin groups as the operative units behind shell ring
formations, alternatively, distinct rings at multiple ring sites may
represent separate rings for men's versus women's groups, boys versus
adult males, chiefs versus followers, hosts versus ceremonial attendees,
or any number of specific competitive and diametrical sodalities found
in the ethnographic record. However, at all the rings we have studied,
we have universally found that the greatest volume of shell in rings are
refuse from large scale feasts of oysters, with only minor constituents
representing less frequent remains of smaller meals and events (e.g.,
Russo and Heide 2002; Saunders and Russo 2002). As such, the traditional
notion that shell rings were simple constructs of small groups of
nuclear families living along the coast and throwing the refuse of their
daily meals underfoot in a perfect circle is not supported by the
evidence. Shell rings are remarkably complex architecturally features,
highly varied in size, shape, and abundance across the Southeast coastal
landscape reflecting highly diverse approaches to social organization.