Archaeology Wordsmith

Results for midden:

kitchen midden: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: midden; shell midden
CATEGORY: feature
DEFINITION: A mound or deposit that is formed from the accumulation of domestic refuse, including cooking and eating equipment, food, and garbage. Some of these mounds are of sea shells left by some food-gathering peoples. The term was first used in Danish to describe the middens of the Ertebolle culture and is also used as an adjective for the people who create middens. In Scandinavia, there are many mounds of shellfish debris.
midden: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: kitchen midden
CATEGORY: feature
DEFINITION: Any large refuse heap, mound, or concentration of cultural debris associated with human occupation. The term includes such materials as discarded artifacts (e.g. broken pots and tools), food remains, shells, bones, charcoal and ashes, -- and may include the material in which the debris is encapsulated and modifications of this matrix. Midden debris usually contains decayed organic material, bonescrap, artifacts (broken and whole), and miscellaneous detritus. Middens are a valuable source of archaeological data. The long-term disposal of refuse can result in stratified deposits, which are useful for relative dating. Sometimes the midden is a dump or trash pile separate from the residential area, but more commonly among hunters and gatherers the houses are on top of the midden itself. Some of the largest shell middens were accumulated by shore-dwellers in Mesolithic Denmark.
pack-rat midden: CATEGORY: feature; artifact
DEFINITION: Any collection of artifacts or objects concealed at some point by a pack rat (also wood or trade rat) and remaining in an assemblage at that location. They are so-called because they collect various bits of material to deposit in their dens. They sometimes pick up shiny objects in camps and may at the same time leave something they were carrying, thus giving the impression that they are trading" one item for the other."
shell midden: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: shell mound
CATEGORY: feature
DEFINITION: An archaeological deposit consisting of a refuse mound of discarded shells, offering evidence of early human use of certain mollusks. These often extensive heaps are the result of many years of exploitation of marine resources as a main or supplementary food source. Shell middens provide information on diet, harvesting techniques, subsistence economy, and seasonality.
Sidemi culture: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Shell Midden culture
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A culture of the Vladivostok area of eastern Siberia from the late 2nd millennium BC. The population lived in coastal settlements of semi-subterranean houses, which are associated with shell middens. Characteristic tools were made of polished slate, though small quantities of iron were also used. The area came under strong influence from Manchuria and China, and in the 1st millennium AD it formed part of the Po Hai state.
Alaka culture: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A preceramic shell midden culture on the northwest coast of Guyana which may date to c 2000 BC. Located in the mangrove swamps, the middens have been grouped into the Alaka Phase. The culture relied on shellfish gathering, with some grinding stones, choppers, manos, and metates. There are some crude ceramics in the later stages and represent intrusive cultures and the passing of Alaka.
Benfica: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site in Angola with many shell middens, stone artifact assemblages, and Early Iron Age pottery dated to the 2nd century AD.
Burrup Peninsula: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A rich archaeological area on the northwest coast of Western Australia with 10,000+ engravings on rocks, including geometric figures of humans and animals. Artifacts and features are quarries, shell middens, standing stones, and dry-stone walls and terraces. The site dates range from 6700-200 bp.
Capsian and Capsian Neolithic: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Capsian industry
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A Mesolithic/Stone Age (8000 BC-2700 BC) cultural complex prominent in inland northern Africa near the present border between Tunisia and Algeria. Its shell midden sites are in the area of the great salt lakes of what is now southern Tunisia, the type site being Jabal al-Maqta'. The tool kit of the Capsian is a classic example of the industries of the late Würm Glacial Period and it is apparently related to the Gravettian stage of Europe's Perigordian industry (which dates from about 17,000 years ago). However, it occurs in Neothermal (postglacial) times and, like its predecessor, the Ibero-Maurusian industry (Oranian industry), the Capsian was a microlithic tool complex. It differed from the Ibero-Maurusian, however, in having a far more varied tool kit with large backed blades, scrapers, backed bladelets, microburins, and burins in its earlier phase and a gradual development of geometric microliths later. These became its leading feature by the 6th millennium BC. Shortly after 5000 BC, pottery and domesticated animals were introduced. Some North African rock paintings are attributed to people of the Capsian industry. The Capsian Neolithic, with pointed-base pottery and a stone industry, lasted from c 6200-5300 BP, in the Atlas Mountains of Algeria and the northern Sahara. The name derives from Capsa, the Latin form of Gafsa, a town in south central Tunisia where such artifacts were first discovered. Hunting and snail-collecting seem to have formed the basis of the economy. Human remains from Capsian sites are mostly of Mechta-Afalou type.
cumulative feature: CATEGORY: feature
DEFINITION: A feature that has been formed without deliberate construction or constraints. The feature results from accretion, for example, in a midden, or subtraction, for example, in a quarry.
Da But: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A marine shell midden near Thanh-hoa in northern Vietnam, which has produced a mixed Bacsonian and Neolithic stone industry together with ochre-stained burials and pottery. It has been dated to c 4000 BC.
Die Kelders: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A cave in South Africa with Middle Stone Age remains and a shell midden of the Later Stone Age, plus some of the earliest Later Stone Age pottery in southern Africa.
Ertebølle: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: The final Mesolithic culture of the west Baltic coastal region and coastal kitchen midden culture of Scandinavia. The type site is a coastal shell mound in Jutland, Denmark, dated to c 3900-3250 BC. Pollen analysis places the start of the culture within the Atlantic period, after c 5000 BC. The later phases of Ertebølle are marked by the introduction of pottery and polished stone axes, perhaps as a result of contact with the newly arrived Neolithic farmers to the south.
flint scatter: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A general term applied to collections of worked flint, stone, debitage, and associated raw material gathered up from the surface of ploughed fields or disturbed ground. Such collections range in size from a few dozen through to many thousands of pieces, and may have been collected from areas of any size from a few metres across to several hectares. As such they do not represent distinct kinds of archaeological site but rather the archaeological manifestation of many different kinds of activity; their unity is a product of the way material has been recovered rather than the processes by which it was created in the first place. Much work has been devoted to characterizing flint scatters in terms of what they represent. It is now clear that some are caused by the erosion of underlying features and deposits which relate to a vast range of activities including settlements, stoneworking sites, and middens. In other cases the scatters reflect episodes of activity in the past that involved little more than the deposition of material on the contemporary ground surface which has subsequently become incorporated into the topsoil through natural and anthropogenic formation processes.
Gwithian: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Middle Bronze Age farming site in Cornwall, England, with prehistoric and medieval remains. There are houses of the Beaker Period, field systems of the Middle Bronze Age, and small square fields of Celtic type. The sites of the post-Roman period include a small settlement of circular drystone huts, a shell midden, and a late Saxon chapel. There are also sub-Roman (400-950), early Christian (550-850), and the Late Saxon (850-1050) levels which have been determined by the pottery. Gwithian ware and Mediterranean imports mark the first phase, and Grass-Marked pottery, the second. The chapel of St. Gocanius is one of the few pre-Conquest buildings in Cornwall (c 9th-10th century).
Hoëdic: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A small island off the southern coast of Brittany, France, with a Mesolithic settlement and cemetery with 14 individuals accompanied by antlers. The artifacts were of Tardenoisian type and the whole site was a Mesolithic midden, though there are remains of domestic sheep. The radiocarbon date is 4625 BC.
Hoabinhian: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Hoabinh
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A little-known Mesolithic or Neolithic culture (early-to-mid-Holocene stone tool industry) of southeast Asia (type site is Hoa Binh, Vietnam) dating from 10,000-2000 BC. There are many chipped, pecked, and polished stone axes found in piles of shells. Its importance lies in its position between the earliest centers of rice growing in India and China, and in the part it most have played in diffusing the knowledge of agriculture into Indonesia and the Pacific. The Neolithic assemblages have pottery and ground stone tools for several millennia after 6000 BC. It is best described as a techno-complex with successive cultural accretions, the Hoabinhian cannot be regarded as an archaeological culture of chronological horizon. The majority of Hoabinhian sites found to date are in rock shelters and coastal shell middens. The three recognized phases are: archaic with unifacially worked pebble tools, intermediate with smaller pebble tools and bifacial working and edge-grinding, and late characterized by some pottery, smaller scrapers, grinding stones, knives, piercers, polished stone tools, and shell artifacts.
Impressed Ware: CATEGORY: ceramics
DEFINITION: The earliest Neolithic pottery of the Mediterranean area, with decoration impressed into the clay by sticks, combs, fingernails, or seashells, from before 6000 BC to around 4000 BC (though till later in North Africa). The pottery itself was characterized as having simple round-bottomed shapes. The serrated edge of the cardium shell was particularly popular in the western area and it is also known as Cardial Ware. Before c 5000 BC the ware is found mainly in caves or rock shelters or shell midden sites, where it is associated with hunting-gathering and breeding of sheep. Around 5000 BC, crop cultivation was introduced and large settled villages sprang up. Other types of pottery are found alongside Impressed Ware at this stage, including fine red painted ware in Italy, Stentinello Ware in Sicily, and Ghar Dalam ware in Malta, which represent specialized versions of Impressed Ware. The pottery style may have originated in Asia Minor or even Yugoslavia (Starcevo culture).
Indian Knoll: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A shell mound site in Kentucky with over 1100 burials, many with exotic grave goods. This Archaic midden is dated c 4000-2000 BC.
Ishango: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Stone Age midden on the shore of Lake Edward in eastern Zaire, dated to 20,000 BP. It has a long sequence of occupation and represents the southernmost known manifestation of the so-called African Aquatic Civilization. A crude stone industry with rare backed microliths was accompanied by bone harpoon heads. There was no pottery.
Jomon: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Jomon Period
CATEGORY: culture; chronology
DEFINITION: The earliest major postglacial culture of hunting and gathering in Japan, 10,000-300 BC, divided into six phases. This early culture, its relics surviving in shell mounds of kitchen midden type around the coasts of the Japanese islands, had pottery but no metal. The pottery was heavy but elaborate, especially in the modeling of its castellated rims. The term Jomon means 'cord marked', indicating the characteristic decoration of the pottery with cord-pattern impressions or reliefs. One of the earliest dates in the world for pottery making has been established as c 12,700 BC in Fukin Cave, Kyshu. Other artifacts, of stone and bone, were simple. Light huts, round or rectangular, have been identified. Burials were by inhumation, crouched or extended. The Jomon was succeeded by the Yayoi period. There are over 10,000 Jomon sites divided into the six phases: Incipient (10,000-7500 BC), Earliest (7500-5000 BC), Early (5000-3500 BC), Middle (3500-2500/2000 BC), Late (2500/2000-1000 BC), and Final (1000-300 BC). Widespread trading networks and ritual development took place in the Middle Jomon. Rice agriculture was adopted during the last millennium BC. The origins of Jomon culture remain uncertain, although similarities with early cultures of northeast Asia and even America are often cited.
kaizuka: CATEGORY: feature
DEFINITION: The term for shell midden in Japanese. It existed in the Jomon and early Yayoi periods.
Kasori: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Middle or Late Jomon plaza-type shell midden village in Chiba prefecture, Japan. There were at least 47 pit houses in a circular plan, with shell deposits around the rim. It is the type site for Kasori Jomon ceramics.
Kawakiu Bay: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Site in western Molokai, Hawaii, with large midden deposits and stone structures from a fishing community, dated to 1750 AD.
Kimhae: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Shell midden site of the Proto-Three Kingdoms time on the southern Korean coast and the type site for a category of pottery. Stoneware and/or earthenware were made from the 1st-4th centuries AD.
Kroeber, Alfred Louis (1876-1960): CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: American anthropologist who made great contributions to American Indian ethnology; to the archaeology of New Mexico, Mexico, and Peru; and to the study of linguistics, folklore, kinship, and social structure. He was one of the small group of scholars whose work laid the basis of New World archaeology as a scientific discipline. His first work was in preparing a typological seriation of potsherds from Zuñi sites of the American southwest, and his work, together with that of Kidder and Nelson in the same area, showed how archaeological methods could reveal time depth and cultural change in North America. From 1921, Kroeber applied the same techniques to Max Uhle's Peruvian collections. He worked out a scheme for Peruvian archaeology which formed the basis of all studies of the subject for the next 20 years. Kroeber explored much of the Peruvian coast, especially the Nasca Valley where he made the first-ever stratigraphic excavation of a Peruvian midden. Kroeber continued to write about the ethnology of North American Indians and also concentrated on theoretical aspects of anthropology, in particular the processes of culture change. His Configurations of Culture Growth" (1945) sought to trace the growth and decline of all of civilized man's thought and art. "The Nature of Culture" (1952) was a collection of Kroeber's essays published on such topics as cultural theory kinship social psychology and psychoanalysis."
La Riera: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Prehistoric cave site in Asturias, Spain, with a large number of stone artifacts and faunal evidence of the Upper Palaeolithic (Solutrean and Magdalenian). There was an Azilian shell midden and Asturian levels; its occupation spans c 20,500-6500 bp.
Lake Mungo: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Mungo
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A dry lake with an associated lunette in the Willandra Lakes, a complex of former Pleistocene lakes in western New South Wales, Australia. Excavation of the lunette has produced the best authenticated series of radiocarbon dates for the earliest evidence of man's occupation of Australia, and the remains of a cremated human female date to c 26,000 bp, the oldest evidence of cremation in the world. The remains of a man in an extended inhumation covered with red ochre is dated to c 30,000 bp. Stone tools belong to the Australian Core Tool and Scraper Tradition and there are artifact scatters, freshwater shell middens, and hearths dated by thermoluminescence to 31,400-36,400 years ago. The Willandra Lakes started to dry up c 13,000 BC. The appearance of grinding stones in this period suggest adaptation to wild grain exploitation. Intensive occupation ceased with increasing aridity, although sporadic visits occurred during the Holocene.
Laming-Emperaire, Annette (1917-1977): CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: French prehistorian specializing in prehistoric rock art who found and studied sites in Chilean Pantagonia -- Englefield, Ponsonby, Munición -- and in Brazil, José Vieira and several sambaquis (shell middens). She also excavated at Marassi (Tierra del Fuego), Lapa Vermehla, and Lagoa Santa.
Larnian culture: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A Mesolithic culture, named after Larne, Ireland, and found only on sites close to coasts and estuaries in western Scotland and eastern Ireland. It is characterized by shell middens and the early toolkits include leaf-shaped points made on a flake, the oldest unambiguous implement in Ireland, and scrapers. Some are dated to 6000 BC. Later assemblages contain more flakes than blades and include tranchet axes and very small scrapers. . More recent work casts doubt on the antiquity of the people who were responsible for the Larnian industry; association with Neolithic remains suggests that they should be considered not as Mesolithic but rather as contemporary with the Neolithic farmers. The Larnian could then be interpreted as a specialized aspect of contemporary Neolithic culture. Lake and riverside finds, especially along the River Bann, show a comparable tradition. A single radioactive carbon date of 5725 +/- 110 BC from Toome Bay, north of Lough Neagh, for woodworking and flint has been cited in support of a Mesolithic phase in Ireland.
Lhokseumawe: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Marine shell middens of the mid-Holocene on the coast of northeast Sumatra. There are Hoabinhian stone tools, especially sumatraliths.
Machalilla: CATEGORY: site; culture
DEFINITION: A series of early Formative Period sites on the coast of Ecuador of c 2000 BC, known chiefly through ceramics -- the distinctive Macalilla ceramic complex. Traded sherds found in both Valdivia C and Late Tutish-Canyno contexts suggest mid- to late 2nd millennium BC. Machalilla ceramics, in contrast to Valdivian, are painted (red banded and black-on-white) and figurines are rare and crudely made. Wattle-and-daub fragments in middens indicate that houses existed, but no foundations have been defined.
Marpole culture: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: An archaeological complex in Canada, dating c 500 BC-1500 AD; the type site is at the mouth of the Fraser River in British Columbia. Its distinctive traits include flaked-stone points, microblades, ground-slate points and fish knives, and disc beads of shell and shale. Antler was used for barbed point and harpoon making. There were midden burials, some with plentiful grave goods. It probably evolved from the Locarno Beach culture.
Matola: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Early Iron Age shell midden site near Maputo on the coast of southern Mozambique. Its pottery is used to define the Matola section of the first Iron Age farmers in the area. The pottery recovered is remarkably similar to that from Kwale near the Kenya coast far to the north. There may have been an extremely rapid southward spread of Early Iron Age cultural traits along the eastern coast of Africa between the 3rd-5th centuries AD.
Meillacoid phase: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Melliac
CATEGORY: culture; ceramics
DEFINITION: One of two ceramic series (the other being Chicoid) which emerged from the Ostinoid series. Originating in Haiti, it remained largely confined to the western Greater Antilles. Sites are usually village shell middens, but are often close to good agricultural land. The characteristic pottery is thin and hard but with a rough surface texture and simple incision, sometimes combined with appliquéd strips. The dates are usually within 850-1000 AD, although some sites in central Cuba endured to as late as 1500.
molluscan analysis: CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: The analysis of molluscan remains, of both marine and land species, as part of the examination of the environment of man. A mollusk/mollusc is any of a large phylum (Mollusca) of invertebrate animals (as snails, clams, or squids) with a soft unsegmented body usually enclosed in a calcareous shell. Edible species yield information on the subsistence economy of certain groups; in most cases it is the shells which survive. The analysis of marine mollusks involves separation of the shells from the sample by wet sieving, and the identification of varieties. The occurrence of mounds of discarded shell debris in shell middens also allows for a clear understanding of the collecting patterns, seasonal use, and preferences of man in the marine region. Land snails are increasingly used as an adjunct to pollen and insect analysis in attempts to reconstruct past environments.
mollusk: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: mollusc, snail shell
CATEGORY: fauna
DEFINITION: Any of a large phylum (Mollusca) of invertebrate animals (as snails, clams, or squids) with a soft unsegmented body usually enclosed in a calcareous shell. Often occurring in calcareous deposits, they may give useful information if associated with archaeological remains. A group may give an indication of environmental conditions and general climatic conditions. More tentatively, a deposit containing mollusks may be dated against the geological scale. The phylum Mollusca is divided into five classes: Amphineura (chitons), Gastropoda (snails and slugs), Scaphopoda (elephant's tusk shells), Lamellibranchiata (bivalve mollusks, such as mussels, clams, oysters), and Cephalopoda (octopus and squids). With the exception of the gastropods, most of these groups are aquatic; shells of gastropods and lamellibranchs are frequently found on archaeological sites. Shells also remain from the exploitation of these animals for food, most often found in middens found near coastal sites. Land snails are increasingly used as an adjunct to pollen and insect analysis in attempts to reconstruct past environments.
Morse, Edward Sylvester (1838-1925): CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: American zoologist who introduced archaeology to Japan by excavating the Omori shell midden. He was the first to use the term Jomon" ('cord mark') for the Neolithic earthenware pottery whose its surface decoration consists of impressions of twisted cords."
Mount Camel: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Archaic midden on North Island, New Zealand, dating to 1150-1260 AD.
Natsushima: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An initial Jomon period shell midden near Tokyo, Japan, dated to 7290-7500 BC. The dated layer contained deep conical bowls with cord marks, bones of domestic dogs, bone and stone arrowheads, grinding stones, partially ground pebble-axes, bone fishhooks, and eyed needles.
Obanian culture: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A group of kitchen midden settlements of the western Scottish coast, a Late Mesolithic culture (c 3065-3900 BC) named from Oban in Argyll. The sites are rock shelters and shell middens on post-glacial raised beaches. Diagnostic tools include barbed spears, some limpet-picks scoops), and antler harpoon heads.
Oenpelli Shelters: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A group of five sites in Arnhem Land, northern Australia (Padypadiy, Nawamoyn, Malangangerr, Tyimede I and II). Similar tool assemblages dating from 20,000-3000 BC show up at Malanganerr, Nawamoyn, Tyimede II -- thick flake scrapers with steep edges, horsehoof cores, stone hammers, grinders, and waisted or grooved ground-edge axes. The ground-edge axes found at Malangangerr and Nawamoyn in levels dated to 20,000-16,000 BC are the oldest examples of edge-grinding known in Australia. The sudden appearance of estuarine species in shell middens of 5000-4000 BC in the Malangangerr and Nawamoyn deposits reflect rising sea levels. About 2000 years later, at all five sites, small stone points and scrapers appeared and continued until the present. There is also much bark painting in the area.
Omori: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Late to Final Jomon shell midden near Tokyo, Japan. Edward S. Morse conducted the first scientific excavation of an archaeological site in Japan here in 1877. 'Jomon' is the Japanese translation of the term 'cord-mark' used by Morse to describe the pottery from the site.
Oronsay: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Island of the Inner Hebrides, Scotland, with coastal Late Mesolithic shell midden sites dated to c 3700-3200 BC. Small groups of people likely moved between the sites.
Paso: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A shell mound on the shore of Lake Tondano in northern Sulawesi, which is the best-preserved pre-Neolithic midden to be excavated in Indonesia. Dated to c 6500 BC, there are obsidian flake tools and bone points pre-dating the Toalian. Its inhabitants lived on shellfish and hunted the local fauna. Paso provides and important terminus post quem for the small flake and blade industries and Neolithic cultures (after 3000 BC) which later appear in the region.
Proto-Three Kingdoms: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Late Iron Age, Lelang
CATEGORY: chronology
DEFINITION: The protohistoric period of the Korean peninsula, c 1-300 AD, which preceded the Three Kingdoms period of Koguryo, Silla, and the Paekche. Archaeological finds of the period are mainly from Lelang and Koguryo in the north and Samhan in the south. Bronze and iron were used and iron made at shell midden sites on the southern coast. In actuality, the Three Kingdoms period was c 57 BC-668 AD.
Puerto Hormiga: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A shell midden site on the Caribbean coast of Colombia which offers evidence of a pottery-making culture as early as 3000 BC. Fiber-tempered pottery in an Archaic context from the site has radiocarbon dates between 3880-3310 BC (also 3090-2552 BC), one of the oldest wares in the Americas, rivaled only by Valdiva of Ecuador and Mina of Brazil. Much of the pottery's decoration was by impression, incision, or punctation
Quyn-van: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Shell midden in northern Vietnam which has produced a flaked stone industry together with pottery, grindstones, and contracted burials dated c 3000 BC. It could be a late and specialized coastal variant of the Hoabinhian.
rice: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Oryza sativa
CATEGORY: flora
DEFINITION: Edible starchy cereal grain and the plant by which it is produced. The origin of rice culture has been traced to India. Rice culture gradually spread westward and was introduced to southern Europe in medieval times. Roughly one-half of the world population, including virtually all of East and Southeast Asia, is wholly dependent upon rice as a staple food. The earliest datable record is from Chirard in the Ganges Valley, before 4500 BC. By the third millennium it was widely grown in south China and it was likely domesticated at Hemudu by the eartly 5th millennium BC. Its original center of cultivation could lie anywhere between the two. The earliest cultivated rice may have been grown in natural swamps or middens, but by at least 2000 years ago many parts of southeast Asia were developing terraced or wet-field cultivation.
Rocky Cape: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Northern Tasmania site with the longest continuous sequence of a coastal midden in Australia. The South Cave was occupied from 8000-3800 bp and its living floor is dated c 6800 bp; the North Cave was used from c 5500 bp.
Salinas La Blanca: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Early Formative village site on the left bank of the Narajo River near Ocos, Guatemala. The principal features of the site are two low house-mounds constructed of clay and household debris and dating to 1000-850 BC. A typical household cluster consisted of the house and outdoor hearth, a number of 'borrow pits' (dug to obtain clay) and a sherd-and-shell midden. Large numbers of primitive corn cobs indicate some farming.
Sambaquí: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Sambaqui tradition
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: Shell middens along the Brazilian coast, north of Rio de Janeiro. The oldest debris was left by non-agricultural peoples who used no pottery and who made artifacts of chipped and polished stone (axes, adzes, choppers). The middens are of widely differing ages, from the 6th millennium BC until the centuries before the European conquest. There are also well-finished polished stone effigies (usually of birds or fish) which have a basin-like depression in the back. Probably of ceremonial significance, it has been suggested that these effigies were used in the ritual taking of snuff.
Strandloper: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A term, literally 'beachcomber', for people thought to have created shell middens along the southern Africa coast. It is also the name of a South African coastal Later Stone Age industry characterized by pottery, large flakes, flaked cobbles, and retouched stone artifacts. It has existed for the last 2000 years.
Sulawesi: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Largest island of eastern Indonesia, with a possible late Pleistocene industry from Cabenge and with many rock shelters having Toalian assemblages. The Paso shell midden in Minahasa and the Kalumpang Neolithic site are of archaeological interest.
Téviec: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A small island in Morbihan, southern Brittany, France, where the burial of 23 Mesolithic skeletons were found in a Tardenoisian settlement. Grave goods include stag antlers and shell jewelry. There was a shell midden and the site is dated to c 6575 bp.
Taforalt: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Large cave in eastern Morocco with a blade industry of c 22,000 bp (Mousterian) through Aterian to a long succession of Iberomaurusian phases. A large Iberomaurusian cemetery and shell midden have been excavated. The cemetery had 185 people and is of the Mechta-Afalou type (c 11,900 bp).
Taperinha: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Shell midden near Santarem, Brazil, with the oldest pottery in the New World -- dated to the 8th millennium BP.
Tongsamdong: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Neolithic shell midden in South Kyongsang Province, Korea, c 4500-1500 BC, with Jomon pottery and obsidian among the Chulmun material.
Torihama: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An Initial-Early Jomon shell midden site in Fukui Prefecture, Japan, dating to c 5000-3500 BC. Rich organic remains have been preserved by waterlogging, including a dugout canoe, canoe paddles, hunting bows, ax handles, lacquered wooden comb, basketry, melon rinds and seeds and mung beans, and many bone and wood artifacts.
transposed primary context: CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: In midden formation, a primary context resulting from depositional activities.
Ubayama: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Shell midden in Chiba prefecture, Japan, with pit-houses, human skeletons, and Middle and Late Jomon pottery. Radiocarbon dates of the 3rd millennium BC were given to the Jomon material.
Valdivia: CATEGORY: culture; site
DEFINITION: Early Formative period site on Ecuador's coast, and the name of a Formative period culture c 3200 BC. The type-site flourished beginning sometime before 3800 BC and lasting until c 1400 BC. Its pottery is among the oldest in the New World. Radiocarbon dates, stratification of midden deposits, and considerable stylistic variation in the highly distinctive ceramic complex have facilitated the construction of a chronology. The periods are: A: 3200-2300 BC; B: 2300-2000 BC; C: 2000-1500 BC and D: 1500-1400 BC. Characteristically, ceramics have a gray body, are smoothly polished and decorated with incision, rocker stamping, and appliqué. Decoration is typically only on the upper part of the vessel and all vessels are utilitarian rather than ritual. Periods C and D contained some traded sherds from Machalilla. Figurines in stone and ceramic appear after Period B with the ceramics usually portraying stylized nude females often with a distinctive 'page boy' hairstyle. Valdivia sites consist of coastal shell mounds left by fishermen and shellfish collectors, and also villages (Real Alto) of maize farmers.
Wairau Bar: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Archaic Maori burial ground and midden site in the northern South Island, New Zealand, at the mouth of the Wairau River. The site is remarkable for its rich grave goods, including adzes, necklace units, and fishhooks -- similar to those from contemporary sites in the Marquesas and Society Islands. Dated to c 1100-1350 AD, Wairau Bar also produced perhaps the richest non-organic artifact assemblage of any site in New Zealand. It is from the Moa-hunter period.
Weipa: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Aboriginal site and mining town, northern Queensland, Australia, on the northwestern coast of Cape York Peninsula. Matthew Flinders noted the red deposits, which were later identified as bauxite, the ore of aluminum. About 500 shell mounds are dated c 1200 bp and they are among the largest and best-preserved examples of shell middens in the world.
Willandra Lakes: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Sites in New South Wales, Australia, which are now dry lakes which were filled during times of the Pleistocene. Human activity dates to c 35,000 years ago and there are hearths, artifacts, shell middens, extinct megafauna, and burials in the area. Late Pleistocene fossil remains from the Willandra Lakes region include the specimen designated WLH 50, a robust individual.
Xinle: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: [Hsin-lo]
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Site in Liaoning Province, China, and name of a Neolithic culture of eastern Manchuria dated to the late 6th millennium BC. There are shell middens, textured pottery, and millet agriculture.

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