Middens & Archaeology

WHAT IS A MIDDEN?  A midden is a native trash pile.  These piles are usually made up of shells, animal bones, and broken tools like pottery or arrowheads.  The native people also threw away items like old baskets, clothing, and seeds, but these materials will rot after sitting in a trash pile for a long time.  The only items that remain in a midden after hundreds of years are things made of hard materials like shell, bone, clay, and stone. 

ARE THERE DIFFERENT KINDS OF MIDDENS?  Yes, there are many different kinds of middens.  Near a salt marsh, a midden would be mostly made up of oyster shells.  Lots of oysters live in the marsh, so the Timucua people living there ate plenty of them.  Near a fresh water river, the midden would be mostly made up of fresh water snail shells, because along river habitats, the snails were easy to find and eat.   Closer to the beach, native middens would be filled with coquina shells, clam shells, and whelk shells – all found along beaches. 

No matter where it was located, a “village midden” would probably have a mix of many different types of bones, shells, and tools.  There is another kind of midden that usually only has one thing in it.  This is called a “kitchen midden.”  For example, if there was a great deer hunting spot near the village, the midden there might only have deer bones.  If there was a spot where it was easy to gather mussels, that kitchen midden might be full of only mussel shells.  There were even middens that were made up of only stone chips.  These marked spots where native people chipped out their stone tools and points.

WHAT IS ARCHAEOLOGY?  Archaeology is the study of things that happened long ago.  Archaeologists can learn a lot about the Timucua by studying their old trash middens.  They find out what animals the Timucua ate (by identifying the shells and bones in the midden), what kinds of bowls the Timucua made (from putting together the broken pottery), and what kinds of tools the Timucua used (by studying the stone points and shell axes).  Since large middens were usually located near villages, finding one points to the location of an old native village.

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