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KITCHEN MIDDENS AND NATIVE OVENS. 



By Sir Baldwin Spencer, K.C.M.G., F.R.S., D.Sc. 



{Read before the Field Natttraltsts' Club of Victoria, i ^th May, 191 8.) 



During a recent visit to the National Park, at Wilson's 

 Promontory, Mr. C. French and myself spent a considerable 

 amount of time investigating the kitchen middens that cover 

 many acres of ground on its western shores. Though there is 

 nothing of any special importance in connection with them, 

 yet there are one or two points that are perhaps of sufficient 

 interest to record — all the more because we have very few 

 detailed accounts of any kitchen middens in Victoria. We 

 read, for example, in Brough Smyth's " Aborigines of Victoria " 

 that " on the coasts of Victoria . . . they are found to 

 consist mainly of one kind of shell — namely, the mussel, Mytilns 

 dunkeri, with a small proportion of the " mutton fish," Haliotis 

 nivosa, the periwinkle, Lunclla iindiilata, and the cockle, 

 Cardiiim tennicostatnm ." 



The middens examined by Mr. French and myself were those 

 extending along the coast northwards from the mouth of the 

 Darby River to about half-way to the entrance to Shallow 

 Inlet. Wherever there is a little valley amongst the sand-hills, 

 there the surface is strewn over with shells, that may be 

 scattered more or less irregularly over the depression and up 

 the sides of the hills, or may be gathered together in more 

 definite and restricted heaps. 



The sand is very light, and is continually blown about, first 

 one way and then another, by the strong winds, which alter- 

 nately expose and cover the shells and material of various 

 kinds in the middens. For the most part the shells and other 

 remains form a simple layer on the ground surface, and in 

 many cases look as if the natives had only comparatively 

 recently been holding a feast, except that their great number 

 and the acres of ground that they cover indicate that they 

 represent the accumulations of a long period of time. In 

 other cases, however, they occur in layers that may be several 

 feet below the surface. One such layer is fortunately exposed 

 on the face of a miniature sand cliff, a short distance to the 

 north of Buckley's Rocks. It lies about six feet below the 

 surface of a depression amongst the sand-hills, close to the 

 foot of one of these. As the illustration shows, it has been 

 exposed to view by the gradual wearing away of the sand-hill 

 by which it must once have been covered. The latter is now 

 overgrown with small shmbs and herbage, indicating the fact 

 that a very long time has passed by since the natives fed upon 

 these particular molluscs and left their shells on what was 

 then the ground surface. The outcrop of this special layer 



