Abstract
We examine the criteria for distingishing middens from natural shell accumulations, in the light of the Stone's (1992, 1993) hypothesis that large shell mounds, dominated by the bivalve Anadara, in the Weipa area are scrub fowl nests built from shelly chenier ridge deposits that formed by natural geomorphologic processes. Several previous investigators have considered that the same mounds were humanly made. We present fresh field observations from Anadara mounds, scrubfowl nests and beach‐and chenier‐ridge deposits near Weipa, and show how these differ in terms of stratigraphic, textural and compositional characteristics. This evidence, together with the distribution of Anadara mounds on different substrates ranging from upper intertidal mudflats to lateritic regolith, very strongly indicates that the large shell mounds were not built by scrub fowls from natural coastal deposits, and we conclude that humans were responsible for their accumulation.
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