There is a shell-midden at Papadil in the south and evidence of tidal fish traps at both Kinloch and Kilmory.
The other two periods of human habitation are discernible mainly by the presence of a large shell midden on the site; testifying to the abundant shellfish and game in the area.
Visit an ancient Native American oyster shell midden.
After global sea level rise slowed ∼8000 years ago, a proliferation of shell middens formed an increasingly prominent stratigraphic signature for identifying and defining an Anthropocene Epoch.
A perfect finish to the trip would be a night near the tide pools of East Point, followed by a long beach walk back toward the ranch, past the pelican-friendly marshes and shorebird-covered dunes of Skunk Point, where shipwrecks and shell midden piles peak out from the sand.
Consistent with recent work on shell midden variability, both the archaeological deposits and the activities they encapsulate blur the lines between midden and monument.
By the late Pleistocene and early Holocene, fishing peoples lived along coastlines, rivers, and lakes in Africa, Eurasia, Australia, and the Americas, creating shell midden soils marked by accumulations of mollusk shells, animal bones, artifacts, and other cultural debris.
The results are also relevant for the ongoing discussion surrounding the creation of an Anthropocene Epoch; the shell middens built throughout history greatly influenced both estuarine ecology and landscapes through fishing and engineering practices.
We employ a landscape perspective to the shell middens at Crystal River (8CI1) and Roberts Island (8CI41), Woodland period (ca. 1000 BC to AD 1000) mound centers on the west-central coast of Florida in the American Southeast.
These ethnoarchaeological observations have provided new perspectives on the development of large shell middens that will contribute to a better understanding of the archaeological landscape here and will also be of relevance to midden-rich environments, more widely.
