Enter Dr. Ken Sassaman and his students from the University of Florida’s Laboratory of Southeastern Archaeology. Shell Mound became a subject of intense study in 2013. To learn the detailed story about Shell Mound, visit the site and follow the marked trail that explains the significance of the mound to ancient peoples. Accounts of the story are also available on the Friends of Refuges website, the Laboratory of Southeastern Archaeology website, and in various writings by Dr. Sassaman. The following only touches on some of the highlights.
Initial findings indicated that the mound was not seriously altered by removal of shells for road construction as formerly believed, but instead was purposefully built amphitheater-like, with a rounded level spot open on one side that Sassaman calls “the plaza.” The crescent-shaped mound was more than a simple refuse heap, and multiple lines of evidence indicate that not only was it deliberately built, but at one time was partially rebuilt.
Schematic of Shell Mound developed to orient visitors to the walking tour. The stippled areas are open water or salt marsh, the white area is part of a large sand dune, and the crescent shaped mound is shaded light gray. The open area on the southeast (lower right) part of the mound was previously thought to have resulted from removal of shell for road building.
What I thought looked like a causeway was the arm of an ancient sand dune. Strong prevailing winds during the ice ages produced massive parabolic (U-shaped) dunes, orienting the arms of the “U” in southwest to northeast directions. Shell Mound is at the tip of one of those dune arms, which is aligned with Palmetto Mound, the island site of the ancient cemetery.
Google Earth image of Shell Mound (lower left) and the "causeway" leading to it. Although the mound is obscured by vegetation, the "plaza" is seen as an open area. A small part of Hog Island, site of Palmetto Mound, is seen at the far left, partially covered by the label for the observation deck.
The alignment of Shell Mound, the archaeologists realized, has cosmological significance. From there the sun is seen setting behind the cemetery on Hog Island's Palmetto Mound on the winter solstice—the shortest day of the year and rising toward the landward origin of the dune arm on the summer solstice—the longest day of the year. Ancient southeastern Native American cultures drew spiritual strength from remains of their ancestors, and saw the movement of the sun at the winter solstice as its symbolic entry into the underworld where their ancestors dwelt, and the summer solstice as its reentry into the world of the living. The march of the changing seasons as seen from Shell Mound mirrored the progression of the years and connected the generations.
Shell Mound, December 21, 2018. The sun is seen setting behind Hog Island, site of the cemetery on Palmetto Mound on a cloudy and cold Winter Solstice.
Excavations revealed that Shell Mound served as a gathering place for pilgrims from throughout Florida and the southeast. Visitors celebrated the summer solstice when the sun emerged from the underworld and began its arc toward the cemetery on Palmetto Mound, symbolizing and sustaining connections between the living and the dead. This world view may be related to the Day of the Dead celebrations persisting in Mexico and Central America, said to stem from adaptation of a traditional Mayan summer festival to coincide with the Christian All Souls Day.
Sunrise seen from Shell Mound on Summer Solstice, June 21, 2020. The camera is looking northeast, back toward the origin of the dune arm.
Investigations showed that Shell Mound is much younger than formerly believed, having been completed only a few hundred years before the arrival of Europeans. The village was inhabited for less than 1,000 years by at most a few hundred people at a time, and abandoned about 650 A.D. Burials at Palmetto Mound continued until about 1,300 A.D., and materials from the cemetery have been dated as early as 500 B.C., a full 1,800 years earlier. Evidence that some burials in the area have been moved and reburied suggests that environmental events, including sea level fluctuations, caused people to move the relics of their ancestors to protect them from inundation and loss to the sea. Conceivably some sites were abandoned when inundated by rising seas, and re-occupied when the shoreline advanced or retreated.
We know little about the occupants of Shell Mound, and without the work of Dr. Sassaman and his students, we would know only that they left behind a huge pile of discarded shells. Questions often asked by visitors (What was their name—what tribe lived here? What did they look like? Where are they today?) have no informed answers. They must have had a name for themselves, they probably looked much like the Native Americas first encountered and described by Europeans, and although extinct as a people, some of their genes may persist in people alive today. More revealing information is now forever lost.
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