Mello — Kitchen Middens in Wales. 



535 



20 YDS. FROM ITS 

 COMMENCEMENT, 



AT Pen Mokfa 



The entire length of the Midden is about 80 yards, thinning out 

 at that distance into a dense bed of Patella near the surface. 

 How far back from the shore it may extend is not so easy to ascer- 

 tain ; a bed of Littorina and Patella crops out on the 

 surface, about 56 yards from the commencement of Fig. 2 — Section 

 the Midden, and 20 feet above the beach ; at some six of Cliff^about 

 feet from the edge of the cliff, where it is exposed at 

 about three feet from the edge, the bed is six inches 

 below the surface and two feet thick. I found no 

 bones here, but several fragments of charcoal. In 

 the cutting by the side of the pathway, near the gate 

 beyond the Dean of Christ Church's house, a bed of 

 Patella and Littorina occurs about 50 or 60 feet from 

 the beach. Beside the shells mentioned above, I 

 found in bed No. 12 several oyster shells, two speci- 

 mens of Purpura lapillus and some fragments of 

 Cardium edule. The early inhabitants appear also 

 sometimes to have caught a crab, by way of a treat, 

 as part of a claw was in this bed. Amongst the bones 

 which I obtained were several that had been burnt ; 

 others seem to have been split for the sake of the 

 marrow. These burnt bones and shells, also calcined, 

 together with the large quantity of charcoal dissemi- 

 nated throughout these beds, seem to put beyond 

 question their being the remains of an old Kitchen 

 Midden, but I am inclined to doubt its veiy great 

 antiquity, many of the shells and bones, even in the 

 lowest bed, presenting a very fresh appearance, and 

 the latter seem, in many instances, to have lost none 

 of their gelatine ; however, that may prove nothing. 

 Bones were tolerably numerous in bed No. 12, but 

 no very large ones were met with. I found several 

 small jaws of lambs or small sheep ; also fragments 

 of jaws of the ox and deer (species ?), two small 

 skulls of some little rodent, many leg bones, also vertebra and 

 knuckle bones of different small animals ; — what these may be I 

 am not enough of an osteologist to say. No traces of implements 

 appear in these beds, unless one small bone-fragment, which looks 

 as if it might have been used as an arrow-head, should prove one. 

 Bits of burnt clay, like those mentioned by Mr. Bonney, were very 

 numerous in parts, and the layer of burnt clay, with calcined pebbles, 

 looks very much — from the layer of charcoal on its surface — as if it 

 had been burnt in situ. 



Farther along the coast, close to a boat-house, near the ruins of 

 Glogarth Abbey, a bed of Littorina and Patella appears in the cliff, 

 which is here but a few feet in height ; the bed looks as if it had 

 been mostly destroyed, perhaps by the sea ; in it I found a few bone- 

 fragments and teeth, and some bits of charcoal : the shells in this bed 

 were very friable, far more so than in the other Midden, owing 

 possibly to their greater antiquity, or, may be, to their being nearer 



ISiiSl:, 



{talus). 



