Narugami Shell Mound

The Narugami Shell Midden (鳴神貝塚, Narugami kaizuka) is an archaeological site consisting of a shell midden and the remains of an adjacent Jōmon period settlement located in the Narutaki-chō neighborhood the city of Wakayama, Wakayama Prefecture in the Kansai region of Japan.

The middens associated with such settlements contain bone, botanical material, mollusc shells, sherds, lithics, and other artifacts and ecofacts associated with the now-vanished inhabitants, and these features, provide a useful source into the diets and habits of Jōmon society.

It is located at the western foot of Mount Hana, extending into paddy fields on the plain below the mountain, and is a rare example of a shell midden in the Kansai region of Japan.

The shell layer had a thickness of around 30-centimeters and is buried at a depth of around 1.7 meters below the present ground level.

[2] The site is about 15-minutes on foot from Nichizengū Station on the Wakayama Electric Railway Kishigawa Line.