27-604: Bedford Village may refer to: Bedford Village Archeological Site Bedford Village Historic District Topics referred to by the same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title Bedford Village . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Bedford_Village&oldid=932716491 " Category : Disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description
54-411: A living history museum at the site. The resulting attraction, known as Old Bedford Village, was built in 1975 and 1976. Before the creation of Old Bedford Village, the site was locally known as a source of artifacts , but no wider attention was paid to the site's archaeological potential until after the museum was established. Testing at the northern portion of the site in 1977 revealed evidence of
81-471: A clear central area. Many are known from Japan and the southeastern United States, and at least one from South America. The word is of Scandinavian via Middle English derivation (from early Scandinavian; Danish: mødding , Swedish regional: mödding ). The word "midden" is still in everyday use in Scotland and has come by extension to refer to anything that is a mess, a muddle, or chaos. The word
108-453: A house in the village. Each household would dump its garbage directly outside the house. In all cases, shell middens are extremely complex and very difficult to excavate fully and exactly. The fact that they contain a detailed record of what food was eaten or processed and many fragments of stone tools and household goods makes them invaluable objects of archaeological study. Shells have a high calcium carbonate content, which tends to make
135-670: A long period between the 6th millennium BCE and the beginning of European colonisation. European shell middens are primarily found along the Atlantic seaboard and in Denmark and primarily date to the 5th millennium BCE ( Ertebølle and Early Funnel Beaker cultures), containing the remains of the earliest Neolithisation process (pottery, cereals and domestic animals). Younger shell middens are found in Latvia (associated with Comb Ware ceramics), Sweden (associated with Pitted Ware ceramics),
162-488: A style of pottery described as "cord-marked", translated as " Jōmon ", which came to be used to refer to the early period of Japanese history when this style of pottery was produced. Shell middens were studied in Denmark in the latter half of the 19th century. The Danish word køkkenmødding (kitchen mound) is now used internationally. The English word "midden" (waste mound) derives from the same Old Norse word that produced
189-666: A terrace along the Raystown Branch of the Juniata River , above the marshy areas of the river's floodplain. This location is atypical for the Monongahela culture, whose bearer typically settled in upland areas for defensive purposes. The villagers' houses were similar to those in other settlements; one house in the village is known to have been of a diameter of 7 metres (23 ft), like those in many other Monongahela villages. Based on archaeological evidence, it
216-425: A useful resource for archaeologists who wish to study the diets and habits of past societies. Middens with damp, anaerobic conditions can even preserve organic remains in deposits as the debris of daily life are tossed on the pile. Each individual toss will contribute a different mix of materials depending upon the activity associated with that particular toss. During the course of deposition sedimentary material
243-610: A village from the Monongahela period and of pre-Monongahela occupation dating back to the Late Archaic period . In the summers of 1979 and 1980, Pennsylvania State University conducted much more extensive excavations at different locations in Old Bedford Village, revealing stockade trenches around much of the site. It is believed that the site was extensively impacted by the construction of Old Bedford Village: buildings and utility lines were erected atop much of
270-500: Is believed that the site was occupied for a short period of time — perhaps two generations — at some point between the years 1250 and 1600. After European settlement of the area, the hardwood forest at the site was cleared and the area was farmed for many years. Agriculture ended at the site in the mid-1970s, when the Bedford County Redevelopment Authority received a federal grant to construct
297-537: Is deposited as well. Different mechanisms, from wind and water to animal digs, create a matrix which can also be analysed to provide seasonal and climatic information. In some middens individual dumps of material can be discerned and analysed. A shell midden or shell mound is an archaeological feature consisting mainly of mollusc shells. The Danish term køkkenmøddinger (plural) was first used by Japetus Steenstrup to describe shell heaps and continues to be used by some researchers. A midden, by definition, contains
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#1732779859161324-488: Is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages Bedford Village Archeological Site The Bedford Village Archeological Site ( 36BD90 ) is an archaeological site in central Bedford County , Pennsylvania , United States . Located in Bedford Township north of the borough of Bedford , it was once occupied by a Monongahela culture village. Today,
351-482: Is over 9 metres (30 ft) deep and spans over 10,000 years of continuous occupation. Shell middens created in coastal regions of Australia by Indigenous Australians exist in Australia today. Middens provide evidence of prior occupation and are generally protected from mining and other developments. One must exercise caution in deciding whether one is examining a midden or a beach mound. There are good examples on
378-650: Is used by farmers in Britain to describe the place where farm yard manure from cows or other animals is collected. Grants are sometimes available to protect these from rain to avoid runoff and pollution . In the animal kingdom, some species establish ground burrows , also known as middens, that are used mostly for food storage. For example, the North American red squirrel ( Tamiasciurus hudsonicus ) usually has one large active midden in each territory with perhaps an inactive or auxiliary midden. A midden may be
405-788: The Dreamtime , such as those of the Anbarra group of the Burarra people of Arnhem Land . The Ohlone and Coast Miwok peoples built over 425 shell mounds in the San Francisco Bay Area. These mounds were used as: The mounds were constructed over thousands of years. They were often discovered by accident during construction, mining, or farming. Some of the largest mounds in the Bay Area include: Emeryville Shellmound Located between Oakland and Berkeley, this mound
432-674: The Freycinet Peninsula in Tasmania where wave action currently is combining charcoal from forest fire debris with a mix of shells into masses that storms deposit above high-water mark. Shell mounds near Weipa in far north Queensland that are mostly less than 2 metres (6.6 ft) high (although ranging up to 10 metres (33 ft) high) and a few tens of metres long are claimed to be middens, but are in fact shell cheniers (beach ridges) re-worked by nest mound-building birds. Some shell middens are regarded as sacred sites, linked to
459-510: The National Register of Historic Places in 1984. [REDACTED] Media related to Old Bedford Village at Wikimedia Commons Midden A midden is an old dump for domestic waste . It may consist of animal bones , human excrement , botanical material, mollusc shells , potsherds , lithics (especially debitage ), and other artifacts and ecofacts associated with past human occupation. These features provide
486-510: The Netherlands (associated with Corded Ware ceramics) and Schleswig-Holstein ( Late Neolithic and Iron Age ). All these are examples where communities practised a mixed farming and hunting/gathering economy. On Canada 's west coast, there are shell middens that run for more than 1 kilometre (0.6 mi) along the coast and are several meters deep. The midden in Namu, British Columbia
513-620: The creation of tropical hardwood hammocks , one example being the Otter Mound Preserve in Florida , where shell deposits from Calusa natives provided flood free high areas in otherwise large watered areas. There are instances in which shell middens may have doubled as areas of ceremonial construction or ritual significance. The Woodland period Crystal River site provides an example of this phenomenon. Some shell mounds, known as shell rings , are circular or open arcs with
540-413: The debris of human activity, and should not be confused with wind- or tide-created beach mounds. Some shell middens are processing remains: areas where aquatic resources were processed directly after harvest and prior to use or storage in a distant location. Some shell middens are directly associated with villages, as a designated village dump site. In other middens, the material is directly associated with
567-520: The middens alkaline . This slows the normal rate of decay caused by soil acidity, leaving a relatively high proportion of organic material (food remnants, organic tools, clothing, human remains) available for archaeologists to find. Edward Sylvester Morse conducted one of the first archaeological excavations of the Omori Shell Mounds in Tokyo, Japan in 1877, which led to the discovery of
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#1732779859161594-472: The modern Danish one. Shell middens are found in coastal or lakeshore zones all over the world. Consisting mostly of mollusc shells, they are interpreted as being the waste products of meals eaten by nomadic groups or hunting parties. Some are small examples relating to meals had by a handful of individuals, others are many metres in length and width and represent centuries of shell deposition. In Brazil , they are known as sambaquis , having been created over
621-659: The region. As one of the most eastern Monongahela sites ever discovered, it represents the possibility of transition between the Monongahela and other peoples of central Pennsylvania. Moreover, the site's location in a floodplain has been cited as evidence for climate change in North America: it has been proposed that cooling weather around the year 1500 caused the bearer of the Monongahela culture to abandon their hilltop homes in favor of warmer weather in river valleys. Questions of influence from other cultures are especially significant because artifacts have also been found at
648-399: The site is the location of Old Bedford Village, an open-air museum , containing a variety of historic structures transported to the site from the surrounding towns of Bedford, Everett , and Rainsburg . The Monongahela village once located at the site was composed of circular houses surrounded by a stockade , an arrangement common in such villages. It was built at the highest point of
675-608: The site of the Shenks Ferry culture of eastern Pennsylvania. While such evidence is minimal, it suggests a short-term Shenks Ferry occupation at a date later than that of the Monongahela; among the remains of the Shenks Ferry occupation is a large midden located on top of the Monongahela stockade. The wide range of artifacts and the high degree of preservation at the Bedford Village site led to its listing on
702-489: The site, and a gravel road now runs across the area. Moreover, the heavy machinery used in construction may have buried middens on the edge of the village's terrace. However, approximately three-fourths of the site remained undamaged after construction, and it is unlikely that any more areas will be affected by the museum. The Bedford Village Site represents an unusual mix of phases in Native American history in
729-514: Was estimated to be 60 feet high and 350 feet in diameter. It was demolished in 1924. Huichuin Located in Berkeley, this mound was 20 feet high and was the site of the first human settlement on the shores of San Francisco Bay. West Berkeley and Ellis Landing These mounds measured almost 200 meters in diameter and rose 9 meters above the shoreline. Shell mounds are also credited with
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