I have found when exploring a midden you may become confused with the
materials you find. While working on a midden at one of my sites we
discovered a situation where one midden was used over and over again
over a long period of time. We did come up with a simplified profile
of the local society over an extended period of life. Prime example
could also be a individual farm midden. Farmers have a tendency to
throw everything away in the same location. Makes for a" GREAT PILE"
of history.
You may wish to contact Dr. Steve Black ([log in to unmask]) at
The University of Texas at Austin for references to BRM (burned rock
middens) we find in Texas. Steve is extremely well versed in midden surveys.
David Parkhill
At 02:34 PM 3/21/2007, you wrote:
>Jeanette-
>
>I think mistaken identification of middens must be pretty common in
>initial testing because depositional strata can look much like the
>strata in a single episode of fill when you see them in a shovel
>test pit. We all have heard horror stories of expensive excavations
>being begun only to find that the deposits have no integrity.
>
>Many years ago on one of the Iroquois Pipeline sites I began
>excavating into what appeared to be a large, clearly defined pit
>feature filled with some nice midden deposits, including pearlware
>and a bone toothbrush near the top. A foot or so deeper, however,
>were a plastic panty-hose wrapper and a curtain rod. Four feet down
>the feature bottomed out in clearly visible marks from the teeth of a backhoe.
>
>On the Spain's Boarding House Site in Thendara, N.Y. (early 20th c.
>lumber town boarding house), I identified six remote midden heaps in
>the woods behind the house foundation and two in the side yard area.
>One of the side yard middens was identified as such because it
>looked pretty much like the kitchen midden next to it and had
>similar artifacts on the surface. No subsurface testing was done on
>it because it seemed obvious that it was just one more like the
>others. During data recovery excavations, however, it turned out to
>be nothing but a dirt pile.
>
>On the same site, deposits I had originally identified as nothing
>more than artifacts in landscape fill turned out to be the edge of a
>kitchen midden whose top had been shoveled off to fill in a
>depression right beside it. While it had no real stratigraphy any
>more, it was sealed under a datable architectural feature and
>represented deposition from an earlier occupation. It was quite
>useful for comparison with the later middens.
>
>The Data Recovery report on Spain's Boarding House is presently
>being edited for publication in the New York State Museum's Cultural
>Resources Survey Program Series. It contains an analysis of the
>different functional types of middens on the site and reasons for
>their locations. I can send you a copy of the analysis off list if
>you think you would find it useful.
>
>The gray-lit. references follow:
>
>Pickands, Martin
>1997 Cultural Resources Site Examination of the Dowling Site
>(NYSM# 10240) and the Spain's Boarding House Site (NYSM# 10241) for
>PIN 2018.71.121; 94PR 0442 NY 28 at the Adirondack Scenic Railroad,
>Hamlet of Thendara, Town of Webb, Herkimer Co., N.Y., New York State
>Museum Anthropological Survey, Albany
>2005 Data Recovery Excavations at the Spain's Boarding House Site
>and Relevant portions of the Dowling Site, New York State Museum
>Anthropological Survey, Albany
>
>
>Martin Pickands
>New York State Museum
>
> >>> Jeanette Mckenna <[log in to unmask]> 3/21/2007 2:32 PM >>>
>Folks:
>
>I am working on a paper for the SAAs and would appreciate any information
>you may have regarding midden. To be more specific, I am interested in the
>identification of midden deposits during surface surveying that ... after
>excavations were determined to NOT BE midden. I do not need a lot of
>specifics on the actual excavations, but would like to cite some examples.
>On another approach - examples where midden was not visible on the surface,
>but identified during excavations or in natural cuts.
>
>Thanks,
>
>Jeanette McKenna
|
