Has anyone ever been hunting down around the San Bernard Wildlife Refuge? I've heard that there are some shell mounds on Bernard River Rd near the mouth of the San Bernard. That's down very close to the Intercoastal Canal. Just curious because I've never seen a shell mound, but I hear they are common for the coastal areas. Any ideas??

Shell Mounds??

New one for me.. Do you mind explaining to me what that might be?? Is there shell instead of hash rock or something???

If they ate that much seafood, they probably all dies of heart attacks because of high fat diets! heheh

Michelle

"Hash" rock is what I call all the rock in the middens when there is ALOT of rock, but nothing in it..

Looks like it has alot of holes in it, and they are all heated... But normally nothing in it.. There are other layers of rock, that DO NOT look like the "Hash"

I quess "Hash" is just something that we like to call them..

You haven't missed anything in 10 years.. Probably back then you just called it junk rock!

Michelle

More words on hash rock. Always found at the base of a slope or hillside. Its the natural breakdown of the hill over 10K years, its never been near a fire but over rides and mixes with the fire rock. If digging INTO a hillside adjacent to a midden, thre is no fire rock at all and the hash rock is ultra settled into compaction. One assumes points found in this material started life higher on the hill while the ancients were catching a breeze away from the camp fires. After grunching this material out one pebble at a time, its amazing that delicate points survive the extraction.

Well, I really don't know if the entire mound would be shell. Probably more like a shell midden. Although I've never seen one in person, I had a boss that found several flint fish hooks and some shell jewelry in a camp near Matagorda Bay. He told me there was piles of oyster shells, and it was very hard to dig through. He was from the hill country and said they reminded him of a rock fire pit, only with shell.

Maybe someone out there has some experiences. I'd like to know if it's worth it before I brave the saltgrass mesquitos.

Hi H-town. We seem to have gotten away from shell middens so maybe this will help, "Steve 71" seems to be a coastal eficianado... Crank in TEXASCASHE.NET [sign in] click "LATEST FINDS" then hit "INDIAN POTTERY SHARDS AND WHAT?" Then page 4,
BEACH POINT LAST COUPLE OF DAYS
then
NEW FLINT LAST 3 BEACH WALKS.
Send Steve a twix on that site asking about shells. Good luck, SH

Thanks. I'll send him a note and see if he can give me a better understanding of the shell mounds. After looking at some of his finds, I'm really excited!

Leapin lizards H.Town, now you got me going!
Go to GOOGLE. Type in SHELL MIDDENS.....hit search!

Without even looking at the TEN PAGES of seperate sites, just reading the "headlines" gives a lot of info. Also the May/June 07 ARCHAEOLOGY MAGAZINE has a very descriptive article of shell midden contents in front of Daisey cave, 13,000 BP in channel islands off CA. Happy hunting.

Well I'm headed to the coast this weekend!! Hopefully I will have a successful day. I am meeting up with an old friend from that area and we are going to scan as much of the San Bernad river's banks as we can in a day. Any suggestions about river hunting would be helpful. We plan to focus our hunt at a well known oyster bed, that been there for years. You can only get to it during high tide.

We are going to be about 8 miles (as the crow flies) from the San Bernard Wildlife Refuge. I can't believe it, this will be the first time I go to the coast without a fishing pole?!?

Well we found nothing! Except ten million mesquitos! I should have brought my fishing gear, because the reds were running in the bays.

We did locate a potental camp site, but it was private property. We'll have to go back and see if we can have permission to look around.

In any case, it was a fun trip and I only fell out of the boat one time. We also saw a lot of pretty landscape. I'm not givin' up on the shell middens, though!

Nothing but bugs??? Yuckers! Sorry to hear it!

LOOK at all the peopel that are interested in shell middens though!

Allot people want to hear about them.. Me too!!

Got any pictures of a shell midden???

Michelle

Nope, no pictures of any shell middens. I love going to the coast anyway, but it would be even better if I had another reason to go. Maybe someone will see this post and share some pictures.

HERE WE GO AGAIN !!! For all you coastal minded hunters.....Go to TXCACH, click ARROWHEADS, then click 2 DAYS ****.... Even if it is not all found in two days, we presume it WAS found along the coast in the counties mentioned. Very nice variety. Once finding a "productive " site I would wonder how deep things would go in relatively loose sand. Do you suppose they go down to the RED ?????