292 GENERAL VIEWS ON ARCHAEOLOGY. 



animals, and among these the hones of some species now extinct; then 

 there were splinters of silex, (flint or quartz,) with roughly fashioned 

 instruments of the same material, very coarse pottery, charcoal, and 

 cinders. 



At the same time most extensive excavations and most minute in- 

 vestigations established the fact that there was in these heaps a com- 

 plete absence of any metal, whether iron or even bronze, as well as of 

 any kind of domestic animal, except the dog. Here was then unmis- 

 takably the refuse of repasts, lying confusedly mingled* with the rem- 

 nants of the primitive mechanical inventions of a people that had 

 resorted to the sea-shore in the most remote antiquity, living on fish 

 and game. These remnants and refuse, accumulated in one spot 1 

 during a long series of centuries, have been called by the Danes 

 Kjoeklsenmoed&ing, from Kjoehken kitchen and Moedding- refuse, 

 rubbish, filth. 



The KjoeJckenmoedding 3 are invested with peculiar interest, because 

 their nature excludes the presence of any object of a posterior date. 

 Unless the soil should have been disturbed subsequently, which is 

 always easily ascertainable, and which, on many spots that are now 

 very distant from habitations., never has happened, we are sure that 

 all that is drawn from these deposits does most certainly belong to 

 high antiquity, and has not been brought there at a later time. The 

 Kjoekhenmoedding are therefore real zoological museums of the animal 

 kingdom, of the fauna, which man found on arriving in the country, 

 and they thus form a link which binds the geological past of our 

 globe with the present historical period. It is for this reason that 

 the Danish savans have, for the last ten years, since 1847, set them- 

 selves to investigate the deposits in question with a spirit of research 

 that does them the greatest honor, and which has not failed to lead to 

 results of singular interest. And yet the subject in itself might ap- 

 pear to be somewhat trifling to those who do not consider that every- 

 thing in this world is susceptible of being dignified by true genius. 



In order that the question might be mastered under every aspect, it 

 was attacked by the united forces of an association very fortunately 

 composed of Mr. Forchhammer, the father of the geology of Denmark, 

 of Mr Worsaae, one of the greatest archeological celebrities of the 

 north, and of Mr. Steenstrup, a zoologist and botanist, well known to 

 all those who take an interest in the great and curious question of 

 alternating generation and in the no less important one of the forma- 

 tion of turf-bogs. 



These gentleman, all of them professors m the University of Copen- 

 hagen, have published six annual reports of their researches, (from 

 1850 to 1856,) addressed to the Academy of Sciences of Copenhagen, 

 and signed collectively by all three. They have also gathered little 



*Sea shell-fish supply an enormous quantity of refuse, for the very simple reason that the 

 animals are small and their casing is solid and spacious. 



2 This term is found in Yorkshire, England, under the form of midding, and with exactly 

 the same meaning. 



8 The plural in Danish is Kjockkenmoeddinger. We have retained the singular. In the 

 present memoir all the foreign terms are preserved without alteration in the singular number. 



