BUFFALO SOCIETY OF NATURAE SCIENCES 307 



Village sites are marked by the evidences of a long con- 

 tinued occupancy. Every village site has refuse heaps upon it 

 and nearly every one is accompanied by its burial place. The 

 soil is filled with carbonaceous material, charcoal, decomposed 

 food materials, refuse, ashes and artifacts dropped or discarded 

 by the occupants of the village. 



Every village site is characterized by black spots in the soil, 

 the remains of the decomposed garbage and kitchen refuse which 

 were thrown from the houses of the village. These spots are 

 composed of friable, carbonaceous, black earth, mixed with 

 ashes, charcoal and charred food, such as corn, beans and acorns. 

 Scattered through the mass are artifacts of all kinds. 



These middens were evidently allowed to accumulate for 

 years at the doors of houses or along the edges of the terraces 

 or bluffs on which the village stood. There they slowly de- 

 cayed and until the abandonment of the village they would be 

 added to constantly. On some sites even now, after the decay 

 and weathering incident to hundreds of years, these middens 

 are of great extent. One on the site on Buffum street. Buffalo, 

 (No 7 of the list) was thirty feet long, fifteen feet wide and five 

 feet deep. 



When a refuse heap is disturbed by the plow it forms the 

 characteristic black spots. Owing to the abundance of carbo- 

 naceous matter in the refuse these black spots persist for years; 

 and on sites that have been cultivated for fifty years they may 

 still be traced easily. On these spots are to be found all the 

 artifacts originally in the refuse heap. 



On one site occurs a modified form of the refuse heap. This 

 is an "ash, pit", a pit three or four feet deep and a yard in diam- 

 eter, filled with ashes and refuse. 



The articles found in a refuse heap give an excellent idea of 

 the life of the villagers. During a long occupation practically 

 every article used in the village would find its way either to the 

 refuse heaps or to graves. In some villages little or nothing was 

 buried with the dead, therefore the refuse heaps of such a village 

 contain nearly every imperishable article used in the village. 

 Many of these articles are, of course, broken; in fact, many were 

 thrown upon the midden because they were broken. A large 

 proportion however, are perfect. 



Every village site probably has its burial place near it. The 

 cemeteries of some villages have not as yet been found, and some 



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