Building With Shells?

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Approximately the 2nd century around 100 CE until the mid-18th century the Calusa, an indigenous inhabitant of Florida's southwest coast (that runs from Tampa Bay all the way down through Ten Thousand Islands), lived along a flat landscape of sand, water and swamp. Because there was no hard stone there were no masonry type structures as the Mayans and Romans had built. The Calusa used mollusk shells. So along with clay, discarded items, millions of clams, oyster and whelk shells were stalked into mounds. These served many purposes such as houses, temple platforms and burial memorials. Huge lightning whelk and horse conch hammers were used to fell trees and shape dugout canoes.