Fig Island Site

National Register Listing

Street Address:

Address Restricted (Charleston County)

Alternate Name:

38CH42

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NRHP Nomination

Record Number:

S10817710021

Description and Narrative:

The Fig Island Shell Rings, Nos. 2 and 3, are two of 20 or more prehistoric shell rings located from the central coast of South Carolina to the central coast of Georgia. All are believed to date early in the second millennium BC, and they contain some of the earliest pottery known in North America. The function of the ring shape is unknown, although the rings appear to be carefully planned and systematically deposited sites. As such, they also present one of the earliest records of sedentary life among people who must have lived entirely by foraging. The Fig Island site consists of three prehistoric Indian shell middens grouped in a marsh. Site number 1 is about 600 feet long and stands 20 to 25 feet above mean sea level. It contains a great quantity of oyster and other mollusk shell and pottery sherds. Site number 2 is a midden deposited in a ring shape with a diameter that measures about 215 feet from crest to crest and stands to a maximum height of 4 feet above a flat central area. The rim, virtually intact, contains abundant shell, animal and fish bone, and pottery sherds. Site number 3 is an eroded remnant of a shell ring with slightly less than half of this ring remaining. Listed in the National Register October 15, 1970. Designated a National Historic Landmark March 29, 2007.

Period of Significance:

before 1400

Level of Significance:

National

Area of Significance:

Archeology: Prehistoric

National Register Determination:

listed

Date of Certification:

October 15 1970

Date of Certification as a National Historic Landmark:

March 29 2007

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