PREHISTORIC KITCHEN-MIDDENS. 1214 
floor, but there lie the hoofs of beeves ready to hand when 
a missile is wanted, and the bloody hides for non-combatants 
to shield themselves withal, not to mention other matters 
scarcely befitting a royal banquet-hall.” 
Before manure came to be utilised for agricultural 
purposes, kitchen-middens were allowed to accumulate to 
any extent ; and after the inhabitants abandoned the locality, 
these often became the habitat of a rank vegetation, which 
in course of time buried many of them under an accumula- 
ation of humus. Other natural causes have also contributed 
to conceal such remains from the purview of the 
archeologist. I have recently examined a kitchen-midden 
on the coast of Fife which had been buried under a sand- 
dune, over which ultimately a thick covering of grass had 
grown. Peat is another substance which has played an 
important part in the preservation, or rather concealment, 
of antiquarian remains; and it is not an unfrequent 
occurrence to find huts and their appurtenances buried under 
a bed of this material. In lake-dwellings built over piles 
all the refuse was allowed to drop into the water, under 
which it found a resting-place in a deposit of fine mud; and 
thus some of the most fragile objects have ever since been 
effectually preserved from decomposition. The most remark- 
able accumulations of the débris of human occupancy 
known to me are the Terramara-deposits of Italy and the 
Terp-mounds of Holland, both of which will be subsequently 
more particularly noticed. 
The size and contents of kitchen-middens depend, of 
course, on a variety of circumstances, such as the number 
of members of a family or individuals congregated together, 
the duration of the occupancy, and the kind of food procur- 
able in the locality. If people made edible molluscs the 
staple ingredients of their diet, the resulting midden would 
be composed largely of the discarded shells, which, being a 
bulky refuse and little liable to decomposition, would soon 
form vast heaps. On the other hand, if they were pastoral 
farmers or hunters, the food-refuse would be mainly com- 
posed of the osseous remains of domestic and wild animals. 
The former class of remains or shell-heaps are always 
located near the sea, or what was formerly sea—generally on 
