Shell mounds, areas once used as ceremonial and burial sites by the region’s indigenous people, are located in hundreds of locations around the Bay Area, including in Sonoma County.

A lot of Bay Area Shell Middens have been lost over the years, either to time and erosion, or to destruction and development.

Among the shell middens of Sonoma County, the best known are the sights in Bodega Head. On a plot north of Bodega Head is Kee Ranch, founded by an Irishman James and Katherine Kee in 1869. On part of the land was a shell midden, called “Kee Mound” (or archaeological site CA-SON-299), excavated by Hardin Chenoweth in 1947 and then by a UC Berkeley archaeologist in 1949.

Approximately 4,000 artifacts have been discovered at the Kee Mound site, located near an ancient Coast Miwok village called “Kili.” According to an August 17, 1955 Petaluma Argus-Courier article, the mound was estimated to be 3,500 years old. The mound was destroyed in 1951 and no official reports or photos of the artifacts have been made public.

Another site on Bodega Head, known as CA-SON-320, dates to the 1800s. According to CaliforniaPrehistory.comthe late environmental activist Rose Gaffney lived near the site, where she recovered a large quantity of artifacts as the site eroded into the bay. Artifacts included beads, charmstones, sweat scrapers, and obsidian tools.

According to a January 27, 1952 article in The Press Democrat, another artifact Gaffney found was a heavy shell with 28 notches on its exterior surface and three circles engraved on the interior surface.

“I think I have one of the few Indian calendars in existence,” Gaffney said of the artifact, which appeared to scientists to represent the 28-day lunar month coinciding with the Moon, Earth and Sun ( circles).

“Experts say there are three phases of civilization represented by the mounds near Bodega Bay,” Gaffney said. “But I think it’s a continuous and progressive civilization.”

Other shell middens in the Bay Area

In March, Ohlone and other Bay Area residents celebrated the Return of Berkeley’s Sacred Homeland to Indigenous Management.

The land, recently become a 2.2-acre parking lot, is known as the West Berkeley Shellmound and dates back more than 5,000 years, when the Ohlone people established the first human settlement and ceremonial site there.

The return of land to indigenous women Sogorea Te’ Land Trust was a victory years in the making, thanks in large part to local activist groups like the Coalition to Save West Berkeley Shellmound & Village Site.

The West Berkeley Shellmound is “one of the largest of 425 funerary monuments that once lined the shores of San Francisco Bay.” according to the shell coalition.

Of the more than 400 shell middens identified around the bay, fewer than 20 remain intact, according to UC Davis archeology professor in 2014.