Middens Research Articles

Continuity of Lithic Practice from the Eighteenth to the Nineteenth Centuries at the Nipmuc Homestead of Sarah Boston, Grafton, Massachusetts

Stone tools have been found at all Nipmuc-related house sites in central Massachusetts dating from the 17th through 20th centuries. This article explores in detail the lithic assemblage recovered from the kitchen midden of the late 18th and early 19th century Sarah Burnee/Sarah Boston farmstead in Grafton, Massachusetts. Quartz and quartzite lithics were found in similar concentrations as historic ceramics within the midden suggesting that these tools were in active use within the household. Ground-stone tools of ancient origin indicate curation and reuse of older materials, and knapped glass and re-worked gunflints suggest knowledge of flintknapping. This article argues that despite colonial rules forbidding traditional Native practices, this and other Nipmuc families continued to practice the production and use of lithics for at least 300 years after the arrival of Europeans.

Occurrences of the amphi-Atlantic brown mussel Perna perna (Linné, 1758) (Mollusca, Bivalvia) in South Portugal since the Atlantic “climatic optimum”

The large, edible, and near-cosmopolitan brown mussel Perna perna (Linné, 1758) has a history of few and infrequent occurrences in Portugal since the Atlantic “climatic optimum” of the Holocene. Moreover, it is likely that some previous citations of Mytilus spp. from other Holocene deposits, including kitchen middens, may represent true Perna specimens. The species was recently found by Lourenço et al. (2012) in the south Portuguese coastal localities of Ilha do Farol and Vila Moura. Here, we summarize these and other previously published occurrences of P. perna in the areas of Armação de Pêra, Lagos and Aljezur, discussing morphologic, ecologic and biogeographic aspects of this species in the Portuguese fauna. The brown mussel is also known from archaeological records from Padrão I (Sagres – Vila do Bispo, Ancient Neolithic) and Arrifana (Aljezur, XII century). These chronologies are contemporaneous with the climatic warming intervals of the Atlantic Period (circa 8000-5000 BP) and “Medieval Warm Period” (circa 1000- 1200 AD). During these and other related intervals of warmer coastal surface waters, it is very likely that this subtropical “warm guest” colonized open marine rocky areas of the South and Southwest Portuguese coast, with settlement of stable and permanent populations.
 Ocorrências do mexilhão castanho anfiatlântico Perna perna (Linné, 1758) (Mollusca, Bivalvia) no sul de Portugal desde o “ótimo climático” Atlântico - O mitilídeo Perna perna (Linné, 1758), espécie comestível de dimensão apreciável e repartição quase cosmopolita, apresenta um historial escasso de ocorrências em Portugal desde o “ótimo climático” Atlântico do Holocénico. É provável, também, que algumas das ocorrências publicadas de Mytilus spp. noutros depósitos holocénicos, incluindo concheiros, possam corresponder a espécimes de Perna. Recolhas recentes na costa sul de Portugal, mencionadas por Lourenço et al. (2012) ampliam as ocorrências conhecidas às localidades de Ilha do Farol e de Vila Moura, em paralelo com citações mais antigas para Armação de Pêra, Lagos e Aljezur. Estas ocorrências são sumariadas no presente estudo, assim como discutidos aspetos de ordem morfológica, ecológica e biogeográfica relativos à presença desta espécie na fauna portuguesa. No registo arqueológico, o mexilhão castanho é conhecido nos arqueossítios de Padrão I (Sagres – Vila do Bispo, Neolítico Antigo) e Arrifana (Aljezur, século XII). Estas cronologias são coevas com os intervalos de melhoria climática do período Atlântico (circa 8000-5000 BP) e de finais da IdadeMédia (circa 1000-1200 DC). Durante estes e outros intervalos comparativos de melhoria das condições hidroclimáticas das águas superficiais costeiras, considera-se bastante provável que este “warm guest” subtropical tenha atingido, por diversas vezes, áreas não restritas do litoral rochoso do sul e sudoeste dePortugal, com o estabelecimento de populações estáveis e permanentes.

The Future Preservation of a Permanently Frozen Kitchen Midden in Western Greenland

Archaeological materials may be extraordinarily well preserved in Arctic areas, where permanently frozen conditions in the ground slow down the decay of materials such as wood, bone, flesh, hair, and DNA. However, the mean annual air temperature in the Arctic is expected to increase by between 2·5 to 7·5°C by the end of the twenty-first century. This may have a significant warming effect on the soil and could lead to permafrost thaw and degradation of currently frozen archaeological remains. Here we present a four-year monitoring and research project taking place at Qajaa in the Disko Bay area in West Greenland. Qajaa is a large kitchen midden, containing frozen remains from 4000 years of inhabitation, from when the first Palaeo-Eskimos entered Greenland, until the site was abandoned in the eighteenth century. The purpose of the project is to investigate current preservation conditions through field and laboratory measurements and to evaluate possible threats to the future preservation.Preliminary results show that the archaeological material at Qajaa is still very well preserved, but some microbial decay is observed in the exposed wooden artefacts that thaw every summer. Maximum temperatures are above 0°C in the upper 40–50 cm of the midden and between 0 and −2°C down to 3 m depth. Thereby the permafrost may be vulnerable to quite small increases in air temperatures. Laboratory measurements show that the decay of the archaeological wood in the midden is temperature-dependent, with rates increasing 11–12% every time the soil temperature increases 1°C. Moreover, the soil organic material produces heat when decomposed, which could have an additional warming effect on the midden. At the moment the water or ice content within the midden is high, limiting the subsurface oxygen availability. Threats to the future preservation are related to further thawing followed by drainage, increased oxygen availability, microbial decay of the organic material, and heat production.

Utilization of molluscs as a food resource among traditional communities in Kalpitiya Region (KR) of Sri Lanka

The present ethnography of fishing communities can be divided as; Deep sea fishing and Littoral – lagoonal fishing. Over the recent decades, the number of coastal zone users increased considerably and so has the nature of demands. The latter include the exploitation of resources found in the zone. Studying current uses of marine and brackish water mollusc resource has two prime values. First is, as it is depicting the periods in history and changes of the shell utilizing pattern. The second is recording recent trends for future studies. Currently the shell resource is drastically running out due to escalating use. Therefore research on fishing culture and utilization of molluscs is important to the future archaeomalacological studies, which is largely untouched by the Sri Lankan researchers. Present research partially fills this void by examining the exploitation of marine and brackish water gastropod and bivalve molluscs in archaeological and ethnographical contexts for the better understanding of the relation between man and molluscs. The research is focused on traditional cultural-economical uses, specially the food economy.From the edible marine organisms, molluscs fill a considerable amount of sea food consumed by man. Two major classes of them, i.e. bivalves and gastropods are utilized to meet this demand. One main locality was examined here, i.e. Kalpitiya Ânavâsala (KA) in North West coast of Sri Lanka. Shell samples were collected from the kitchen middens in the selected region, participant observation and interviews were made with locals. Total shell sample was measured and recorded. Results.Thirteen main edible species were identified from the kitchen middens of KA. From them three types can be found largely in the middens, i.e. Pugilina cochlidium, Paphia sp., Gafrarium tumidum. The other species are very scarce in the middens, but that does not indicate their dietary importance is minor. The main point is that the gatherers collect all species which they know as edible. The saidabundant species are higher in total biomass and easy to collect. Except Turbinella pyrum, Murex ramosas and Lambis chiragra, others are collected mainly from their usual habitats such as sandy bottoms, intertidal flats, subtidal flats and on muddy sand flats seaward from mangrove forests. The rate of the utilization pattern, when it was analyzed with the composition of kitchen middens of the studying area ca. 70% of kitchen middens are comprised with the shells of bivalves (9 middens) and ca. 30% (4 middens) with gastropod shells. In the west coast mollusc collecting is started in April and prevails for six months, which is the active period of high sea (vârakan) of south west monsoon. In the diet of the locals shell fish play many roles as a staple food, subsidiary foods, snacks, and an alternative food source when other subsistence strategies fail. Traditionally maritime communities have their ownterminology not only for the various species but also for collecting, shucking and cooking methods.Utilization of marine and brackish water molluscs in certain traditional maritime cultures is a vertical process of cultural transmission (generational transmission through time). The horizontal process or the cultural exchange across space can be seen through history and society. Hence the use of marine molluscs as a food resource is significant in socio – economic studies of both archaeological andenvironmental approaches.

Paleo-Eskimo kitchen midden preservation in permafrost under future climate conditions at Qajaa, West Greenland

Remains from Paleo-Eskimo cultures are well-documented, but complete preservation is rare. Two kitchen middens in Greenland are known to hold extremely well-preserved organic artefacts. Here, we assess the fate of the Qajaa site in Western Greenland under future climate conditions based on site characteristics measured in situ and from permafrost cores. Measurements of thermal properties, heat generation, oxygen consumption and CO 2 production show that the kitchen midden can be characterized as peat but produces 4–7 times more heat than natural sediment. An analytical model from permafrost research has been applied to assess future thawing of the midden. Results show that the preservation conditions are controlled by freezing temperatures and a high water/ice content limiting the subsurface oxygen availability. Threats to the future preservation are related to thawing followed by drainage and increasing subsurface oxygen availability and heat generation. The model predicts that the unique 4000-year-old Saqqaq layer below more than 1 m of peat is adequately protected against thawing for the next 70 years.

Paleoamerican diet, migration and morphology in Brazil

During the early Holocene two main paleoamerican cultures thrived in Brazil: the Tradicao Nordeste in the semi-desertic Sertao and the Tradicao Itaparica in the high plains of the Planalto Central. Here we report on paleodietary singals of a Paleoamerican found in a third Brazilian ecological setting--a riverine shellmound, or sambaqui, located in the Atlantic forest. Most sambaquis are found along the coast. The peoples associated with them subsisted on marine resources. We are reporting a different situation from the oldest recorded riverine sambaqui, called Capelinha. Capelinha is a relatively small sambaqui established along a river 60 km from the Atlantic Ocean coast. It contained the well-preserved remains of a Paleoamerican known as Luzio dated to 9,945±235 years ago; the oldest sambaqui dweller so far. Luzio's bones were remarkably well preserved and allowed for stable isotopic analysis of diet. Although artifacts found at this riverine site show connections with the Atlantic coast, we show that he represents a population that was dependent on inland resources as opposed to marine coastal resources. After comparing Luzio's paleodietary data with that of other extant and prehistoric groups, we discuss where his group could have come from, if terrestrial diet persisted in riverine sambaquis and how Luzio fits within the discussion of the replacement of paleamerican by amerindian morphology. This study adds to the evidence that shows a greater complexity in the prehistory of the colonization of and the adaptations to the New World.

Aboriginal Kitchen Middens and Marine Shell Beds.

Aboriginal Kitchen Middens and Marine Shell Beds.

Serendipitous backyard hybridization and the origin of crops

Backyard gardens, dump heaps, and kitchen middens are thought to have provided important venues for early crop domestication via generation of hybrids between otherwise isolated plant species. However, this process has rarely been demonstrated empirically. For the majority of polyploid crops, it remains uncertain to what extent hybridization and polyploidization preceded domestication or were precipitated by human activities. Using archaeological, ethnobotanical, geographical, and genetic data, we investigate the extent and significance of predomestication cultivation, backyard sympatry, and spontaneous hybridization for the Mimosoid legume tree Leucaena, which is used as a food crop throughout south-central Mexico. We show that predomestication cultivation was widespread, involved numerous independent transitions from the wild to cultivation, and resulted in extensive artificial sympatry of 2-6 species locally and 13 species in total. Using chloroplast and rapidly evolving nuclear-encoded DNA sequences, we demonstrate that hybridization in Leucaena has been extensive and complex, spawning a diverse set of novel hybrids as a result of juxtaposition of species in cultivation. The scale and complexity of hybridization in Leucaena is significantly greater than that documented for any other Mexican plant domesticates so far. However, there are striking parallels between Leucaena and the other major Mexican perennial domesticates Agave and Opuntia, which show very similar domestication via backyard hybridization pathways. Our results suggest that backyard hybridization has played a central role in Mesoamerican crop domestication and demonstrate that the simple step of bringing species together in cultivation can provide a potent trigger for domestication.

Cockle Conversations: An investigation of the cockle collection practices at two Danish kitchen midden sites

The changes that occurred in the Danish Mesolithic/Neolithic transition are examined via the seasonality and collecting patterns found in the Common Cockles from two Danish kitchen midden sites, Norsminde and Krabbesholm. Three main data sets were used to produce a picture of cockle variability through time. The seasonality results were then compared to oyster seasonality research from the two sites.

Smash Palace -- Model Four Hundred

Smash Palace—Model Four Hundred Michael Coles (bio) My eyes get lost in a matrix of muscular hips and curvature whilewandering through cemetery-like rows of timepieces. Model As and Model Ts lean and crumble on one another. Wooden spokes pop out of rusted rims. I am immersed in a stew of throwaways—Mercury Montclair, Pinto Runabout, Plymouth Cambridge, a blown out lawnmower, a broken washer, and a chunk of firewood. Jackrabbit bounces down a line of fenders as mountain air wisps through overgrown grass on this hillside outside Butte, Montana. Entire spans of American automobile-making in this graveyard are enough to induce a nomadic trance. Yet, amidst this jumble, one particular artifact emits sparks more than others. It seduces the lens of a camera. "No drama, take it for what it is—just another beater," I say to myself. But I remain transfixed by this still machine. Its very sight seems a coronation of a smash palace. "Packard 54–55?" (a speculation of the car's exact year) is scrawled beneath a back windshield rippling in cracked spider-web patterns. A hip of the car reads "Model Four Hundred." Tires are heaped on top of the hood, and typography is bleached out by years of cold rain and snow. An array of scratches and assorted dents are embedded in blotches of faded color. Bruises and slights absorbed over time start to add up and mesmerize. Packard's advertising slogan once rang, "ASK THE MAN WHO OWNS ONE." Czars, rajahs, kings, and presidents rode in Packards. Milt Taylor, a star clown for Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, drove a special edition. Poncho Villa was a Packard customer. According to Packard lore, Czar Nicholas drove a Twin Six with its front wheels substituted by skis. Perhaps a gangster out of Dashiell Hammett's Red Harvest drove this Model Four Hundred down Mercury Street in Butte. [End Page 139] Click for larger view View full resolution Figure 1. I gaze at the silver winged-bird hood ornament. Down below, an emblem remains lodged in the radiator grill, displaying a coat of arms originating from the old English Packard family who came to America in 1638. This coat of arms has been described as "gules, a cross lozengy between four roses argent" and "a pelican in her piety, pricking blood from her breast to feed her young." Back in a dark room I gently roll a 48-ounce film canister half-full of developer on a countertop. One reel of Kodak Techpan film is suspended in the center between empty reels on either side serving as spacers. Kodak Techpan has recently been discontinued. I guess there is not enough interest for slow-speed, fine-grain emulsions in a digital age. A radio plays music as I hope something might come out of these frames I am developing. Staring through a film loupe at negatives, I return to this auto boneyard. The city of Butte lies across Interstate 90 from this quiet hillside of swaying grass. Mining escarpments hover in the distance, resembling a lunarscape. Wallace Stegner once described the town dump of his childhood as a "kitchen midden of civilization." This field of cars seems such a stowaway. My eyes become locked in the passageway of the loupe and the mind revisits. Thrusts, juts, and sharp corners of these cars offer a cubist smorgasbord. How does one make sense of all the names and shapes, the strange memories that they can trigger? "We learn to see before we talk or write," I tell myself. [End Page 140] Junkyards can serve as wellsprings for unremembered pasts. "America, that surreal country, is full of found objects. Our junk has become art. Our junk has become history," the critic Susan Sontag proclaimed. Photography is often a solitary effort. If I do not photograph alone, I will not arrive at certain places or follow hunches that lead to immersion in a particular environment. Images turn out different when I am shooting alongside other photographers. And so I stand awestruck on an October afternoon, my eyes sparked by generations of twisted, mangled, and smashed automotives—an affirmation of our relentless determination to replace, rebuild, and regenerate...

Periwinkle (Littorina littorea) intrashell δ18O and δ13C records from the mid-Holocene Limfjord region, Denmark: a new high-resolution palaeoenvironmental proxy approach

Shells of the common intertidal gastropod Littorina littorea both of recent and mid-Holocene origin were analysed along their growth spirals for seasonally induced variations in stable oxygen and carbon isotope compositions. The subfossil specimens are from the Stone Age kitchen midden in Erteb0lle, northern Denmark, dated between 5970 +95 and 5070 + 90 BP. The recent specimens were collected along a west-east salinity gradient within the Limfjord. A Limfjord mixing line of 0.25%, change in 8180 (V-SMOW) for each salinity unit was determined. The recent Littorina periwinkles display a calcite relationship of -0.22%, change in shell 6180 per C change in temperature, as derived from the Littorina equilibrium equation (versus V-PDB): 5180(Littorina) - 8180(water) = 5.250 -0.224T (C). By using this linearity together with maximum (‘winter’) isotopic results, we extracted a Littorina growth stop isotherm equivalent to a temperature of 3.71 C. In order to constrain the climate and salinity in the Limfjord region during the mid-Holocene, we used this regression-derived growth stop isotherm as a boundary condition. The subfossil shells indicate a summer surface-water temperature close to 22 + 1C together with a salinity of 31 +1 PSU. These results suggest a more pronounced water exchange between the central Limfjord and the North Sea during the late Atlantic time, and in terms of temperature they indicate 2-40C warmer conditions than today.

Aktivitetspladser fra Ertebølletid

Aktivitetspladser fra Ertebølletid

En højgruppe ved Kvindvad, Vestjylland

En højgruppe ved Kvindvad, Vestjylland

Incremental events in the construction of sambaquis, southeastern Santa Catarina.

A construção de cômoros artificiais (mounds) é um fenômeno de amplo alcance em termos globais. Neste artigo são examinados alguns dos processos responsáveis pela construção destas estruturas no litoral sul de Santa Catarina, tomando-se como referência os trabalhos realizados no sambaqui Jaboticabeira II, município de Jaguaruna. Além da análise dos processos envolvidos na construção daquele sambaqui, procura-se chamar a atenção para os aspectos sociais e demográficos destes mesmos processos, evidenciando um sistema regional de considerável complexidade social e duração cronológica.

The Dead Must be Fed: Symbolic Meanings of the Shellmounds of the San Francisco Bay Area

Long viewed as ‘kitchen middens’, the shellmounds of the San Francisco Bay Area have -provided archaeologists of coastal California insight into the subsistence and ecology of precontact native groups. In this article, the authors develop a framework for understanding the cultural significance of these shellmounds which regards them as intentional cultural features, incorporates social context, and builds on earlier subsistence-focused studies of the shellmounds in order to better appreciate the meaning of the numerous human remains interred therein. A structural analysis is then used to show that the concepts of food and ancestors joined together at shellmounds, so much so that ritual attention to the ancestors was very likely regarded as essential to ensuring a continuing supply of food.

Small Ungulate Butchery in the Islamic Period (A. D. 632-1260) at Tell Tuneinir, Syria

THE site of Tell Tuneinir, Syria, is situated on the east bank of the Khabur River in an area that will be directly affected by the construction of a hydroelectric dam below the town of Hasake.' Tuneinir is one of the largest tells in the area and at its highest point rises 20 meters above the surrounding plain.2 The ruins are spread over an area of 46 hectares (113 acres) and can be divided into three zones: the mound summit and the lower town, which are both located on the tell proper, and the suburban settlements, which are located on the plain surrounding the tell.3 Excavation began at Tuneinir in 1987 with the main objective of determining the social, economic, political, and religious institutions of an Islamic period community.4 Towards this objective, eight areas have been excavated, both on and off the tell. Area 1 consists of a step trench extending from the summit down the eastern edge of the tell. Extensions of that trench uncovered the remains of a group of Ayyubid houses as well as the remnants of the first occupation. The earliest remains at Tuneinir date to the Early Bronze Age and consist of a combination kitchen midden and agricultural processing waste site.6 Area 2, near the summit of the tell, encompasses the remains of Ayyubid and Mamluk houses that belonged to the elite.' Also on the tell, but in the lower town, is the greatest bulk of the excavated Islamic period architecture. Area 4 is the south khan, or caravansaray, which includes a small mosque. Area 5 is a bath complex, Area 6 is the market area, and Area 7 is the north khan, which is much smaller than the southern khan.8 Recent excavations have explored Area 8, which appears to consist of houses that belonged to the workers of the tell. Area 3 is a low mound situated on the eastern edge of the suburban

What's in a "Midden"?

Perhaps the mixed agricultural/hunter-gatherer culture (Special Section, Archaeology, 20 Nov. p. 1441–1458) would be less surprising if the scope of our own culture were better known. A future archaeologist digging into my grandparents' North Louisiana kitchen midden (they had one!) might conclude from the mixture of squirrel, wild duck, domestic chicken, and pig bones that they hadn't quite made the transition to agriculture. If the archaeologist found the fossilized remains of a pig killed in the fall, he or she might wonder if the pig was domesticated; the stomach would have been full of acorns. Pigs were fattened by releasing them into the creek bottoms in the early fall. The first freeze (“Hog-killing weather!”) was the occasion to hunt them down for slaughter. When I was a small boy in the 1940s, about half of my protein, perhaps more during World War II, came from wild game and fish when meat was rationed. We also ate wild blackberries, plums, muscadine grapes, mayhaws, pears, persimmons, and hickory nuts. The farm grew cotton for a cash crop, and corn to feed the sows, milk cows (two), and the mule. With small-scale cotton farming no longer profitable after World War II, my grandfather brought in the small amount of cash needed for subsistence by trapping mink and raccoons for their fur. Would an archaeologist be able to figure out that the family produced three physicists?

The Niaquusat excavations reconsidered: A contribution to the discussion of the stratigraphy of the midden at the Norse Niaquusat farm

Sammendrag Moddingen ved nordbogarden ved Niaquusat i Ameralla fjord (FM 64V2‐III‐507) blev arkaeologisk undersogt under Inuit‐Nordbo Projektet 1976–77. Hensigten var at undersoge nordbogardens okonomi. Niaqu‐usat‐undersogelsen indtager en nogleposition i gronlandsk norron arkaeologi, da man her for forste gang undersogte en modding systematisk og stratigrafisk. I alt blev der i forbindelse med 1977‐undersogelsen indsamlet 15.102 identificerbare dyreknogler, og dette materiale har siden dannet udgangspunkt i en diskussion om klimaforandringens indflydelse pa de gronlandske nordbobygders okonomi i 1200–1300‐arene. I artiklen diskuteres tolkningen af Niaquusat moddingens opbygning og indhold samt den absolutte datering af moddingsaflejringerne. Genstandsfund og C14‐dateringer indicerer, dels at moddingens opbygning ikke er foregaet sa regulaert og tidsmaessigt kontinuerligt, som hidtid antaget, dels at man ikke kan se bort fra kronologisk opblandede aflejringer.

Moluscos encontrados no Sambaqui de Camboinhas, Itaipu, Niterói, estado do Rio de Janeiro, Brasil

Archaelogical aspects of Camboinhas' kitchen midden, Itaipu, Niteroi, Rio de Janeiro State are presented, as well as samples of mollusca species found in the kitcheen midden.

Excavations at Levan Castle, Gourock, 1966 & 1970-72

SummaryIn 1970 Renfrewshire Planning Authority were concerned with proposals to develop part of the Levan estate for new housing, and wished to know the probable extent of the former barmkin and outbuildings. A three-season excavation was arranged and supervised by the writer, with the advice in the first year of Eric J. Talbot, then lecturer in medieval archaeology at Glasgow, and thereafter with the advice and support of the late Mrs. Anne Halifax-Crawford, Hon. Vice-President of this society and a member of the Renfrewshire Heritage Committee. The writer however claims any mistakes herein as his own.Apart from identifying two sides of the barmkin, the operation produced an interesting range of late medieval pottery, including continental imports, and a large collection of animal bone from the kitchen midden, indicating contemporary diet (Appendix I).The report is prefaced by a brief history of the building and its owners as far as is ascertainable from documentary sources, which in this case provide as much tentative dating information as the excavation.