One archaeologist's midden is another's shell mound - vanessa ...

habitats and the absence of gravel from storm activity in the shell deposits.
Excavations directed by Professor Steenstrup (Lubbock 1865:180) also uncovered
flint tools, animal bone with butchery marks and hearths, all of which added to the
identification of these sites as cultural in origin.
Figure 2.2: The tumuli of Oden, Thor and Freyda at Upsala Denmark (Lubbock 1865).
The Danish shell mounds varied widely in size up to 300 yards (274m) long 30‐60
yards wide (27‐55m) and between 3 to 10 feet in depth or height (.91‐3.00m).
Variety in mound form was recorded with elongated and doughnut shaped
deposits identified. Sites often occurred in clusters. By 1861 over 50 sites had been
investigated by a specially assembled multidisciplinary team which included
archaeologists. The identification of shell mounds some eight miles from the
current coastline together with and sections of coastline containing no middens
sites was interpreted as evidence for fluctuating sea levels and the impact of harsh
environmental conditions on site survival. The four most prevalent species of
shellfish found in the middens were oysters, cockles, mussels and periwinkles.
Oysters had become almost extinct in Denmark by the 1860s and this was
attributed to both human predation and environmental factors such as a predator
starfish. The reduction in shellfish size overtime in the middens stratigraphic
sequences was interpreted as evidence of over fishing (Lubbock 1865:171‐197). The
major themes identified in Danish midden study’s in the 1860s‐the selectivity of
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