Midden

The National Monuments Service's description

Excavation licence number 01E0838. Two sites lay c. 100m west of Inch Castle. They had been noted as surviving portions of middens that lay between the field boundary and the cliff face. At Site 1 four test-pits were placed in a surviving area of midden which was 25m in length and up to 5m in width. These established that in places a layer of shells up to 0.2m thick survived and that traces of burning occurred below the midden. A test-pit in the field revealed no trace of the midden. This may be the remains of a much larger midden which has been denuded by agriculture on one side and erosion on the other. Approximately 50m to the west a similar small patch of oysters was noted to have survived (Site 2) (DG046-036002-). The shell layer was of approximately the same thickness as at Site 1. (Excavations Bulletin 2001)
Peter Woodman, Department of Archaeology, University College Cork, and Nicky Milner, University of Newcastle.

Described in 2001 as 'This site only survives on a ledge of flat ground on a 10 metres plus cliff in an area beyoned the field boundary. It was noted as a scatter of shells mixed with loose stones in the hazel scrub on the cliff edge. This ledge was approximately 25 metres in length NW-SE and at its broadest 5 metres in width. At one point it was possible to establish that there was a layer of shells up to 20cms thick and on the edge of the midden (the edge was probably created through erosion) it was possible to observe that there were traces of burning below the midden. In general the midden consisted of oyster shells with patches of periwinkles. One sample of shells was submitted for C14 dating to Beta Analytic while a second sample from the base of the midden was retained during the survey. Beta 155379 measured age 5360 +- bp' (Woodman & Milner 2001, 14-17; Milner & Woodman 2007, 104-5, No. 4).

Compiled by: Caimin O'Brien

Date of upload: 17 August 2010

References

Milner, N. and Woodman, P. 2007 Deconstructing the myths of Irish shell middens. In N. Milner, O.E. Craig and G. Bailey (eds) Shell middens in Atlantic Europe. Oxford. Oxbow.