Hi Nicholas!

It seems like you have an excellent opportunity for some additional world-building here.

Let's say that the shells from the giant crabs are actually quite thin and delicate, but after some shaping and contouring, (perhaps some decorative or ritual artistry is also involved) the shells are then immersed in a particular mineral spring and left for a long time, perhaps even years. Imagine then that after a long process, the carapaces remain as thin and light as the original shell, but are now imbued with a strength like carbon nanotubes.

Other premises:
The longer the process, the more colorful, shiny or high-status the armor, thus being very distinctive on the battlefield.
Maybe microbial life is responsible for actually eating the shell and replacing it with their own super-secretions like a matrix or scaffold.
Perhaps the process of using this mineral spring is ultimately deadly to the armorsmiths, requiring great sacrifice and dedication to their craft.

There's a whole lot of lore you could weave into your shell armor no matter what you decide.

Best of luck in your writing endeavor Nicholas!

I like where Scott S. is going with this. How about a barnacle covered giant crab shell? Barnacles are hollow, strong, and grow in tight bunches.

Nicholas,

I do not know if this has been already been suggested, but one of the closest things to shell armour I can think of is the Toltec ‘coraza de Tula’. It is made from actual pieces of shell, perforated at the edges and attached to a textile liner. Although it looks much like armour, which is also implied by the Spanish word coraza (i.e. cuirass), it is probably not. The garment was part of a sacrifice and is similar to those associated with pre-Columbian gods such as Tlaloc.

Here you will find a link to this wonderful artefact.
http://www.mna.inah.gob.mx/coleccion/pieza-4840/ficha-basica.html



Best wishes,
Martijn

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Looks like it may have served a similar purpose as the funerary stone armours in some Chinese tombs.

[ Linked Image ]

The Myceneans wore helmets made from strips or slices of boar's tusk. I would think the same might be possible for sea creature teeth, or if some of your shell materials were similar to teeth.

http://www.ancient.eu/image/2179/

I've been thinking about the uses of kelp recently and thought that, dried out, it could make a very function lamellar.
The large stuff we get here on the east coast o Tasmania dries out to sheets about 15mm wide and 5-7mm thick. It can only be cut with a saw- no way will a knife get into it - nor can I be bent by hand. It's not brittle, though.
It can be soaked to reasonably soft and formed. I haven't done any experiments with it beyond that.
I should, though.

Eric, Philip and others: regarding the curved swords, have you noticed that virtually all of those highly curved swords have the portion of the back closest to the tip (what I'd call the false edge) sharpened? Now I don't for a moment believe that this is for thrusting in any normal sense, but it does look as if it would make for nasty backhanded cuts (like the shielhau in the German longsword system), and as the point is leading due to the curve, the attack may well be almost like a "picking" action (I hope this is intelligible!) - not a thrust, but still a (probably slightly weaker) piercing attack. It would also be pretty nasty to parry such an attack, for a swordsman more used to straighter weapons. Is this plausible? Is there any evidence for or against this?

Then, to the original poster: (warning: lots of speculation to follow:) what I would personally take from the long debate about the merits of various sorts of armour is that the sort of weapon which it is expected to have to counter most often is an important factor. So what weapons do your civilization use? If they are in stone age, conventional swords are probably out of the question, unless stone swords can be enhanced in some (possibly magical) way. Macahuitls(mesoamerican obsidian-edged wooden sword-like weapons) are probably the closest you'll get. Otherwise, the only stone-age cutting weapons you're likely to see (again assuming no magical enhancement) are stone or bone axes and knives - probably short range backup weapons. Effective longer-range stabbing and piercing weapons for the battlefield, however, can be made comparatively easily with stone-age technology (spears, javelins, darts, arrows and so on). So too can blunt weapons, including spiked ones:(stone maces, wooden clubs, shark-toothed clubs, etc). So, for example, the highly developed (largely) stone-age civilizations of mesoamerica (stone-age at least in terms of military weapons), quilted armour is (and was) the way to go: it is easily made using textile-manufacturing technology, it is great against piercing missile weapons like bows and attatl darts (which the spanish state were most commonly used), decent against cutting weapons (which I suspect were rarer - wasn't the macahuitl a higher-status weapon?) and probably a lot better than nothing against clubbing attacks.

Edit: on re-reading I see you wrote the following:

Quote:

There are really only spears, clubs, axes, slings, and knives.

So you are already thinking along the lines I was suggesting.
I would add bows to that list personally - they can be made out of materials other than wood.

Just thinking on weapons.
While stone limits you to fairly short and small blades but there northing stopping from have many close set blades form a long cutting edge.

There have been some quite large daggers made from stone.
Here's some Korean examples.
[ Linked Image ]
[url=PaleoPlanet has a good sub forum on Primitive Weapons]
http://paleoplanet69529.yuku.com/forums/102/M...pons[/url]

Based on Chinese precedent, those Korean daggers aren't weapons, but are imitations of bronze weapons, made in stone for funerary or other ceremonial use. Looking at them up-close in real life, they don't look sharp enough to cut. They'd be able to stab well enough against naked flesh, but a flaked point on the end of a stick would be better (because it would be much sharper) and would do much better against clothing. (And a flaked point is much cheaper, since it can be made very quickly; those polished stone daggers are serious conspicuous consumption.)

I can visualize a method of making armor from crustacean shells in which the shells are pulverized and then combined with a resin or adhesive of some sort before being molded into armor. If it's fantasy you can do pretty much what you want!

I cannot imagine if there is a real suit of armour made from both seashells and crustacean exoskeletons.
If so, it needs huge quantities of such materials.