Midden, Inis Gé Thuaidh, Co. Mayo
Co. Mayo |
Settlement Sites
Off the coast of Mayo, the island of Inis Gé Thuaidh, the northern of the two Inishkea islands, carries a midden on its shores, a quiet accumulation of shells, bones, and discarded material left by people who once lived and ate here.
Middens are essentially ancient rubbish heaps, the organic residue of daily meals and domestic life, and they are among the most informative features an archaeologist can encounter. What they lack in spectacle they more than compensate for in detail, preserving traces of diet, season, trade, and technology across centuries or even millennia.
The Inishkea islands were inhabited for a very long time. Early Christian monks settled on Inis Gé Thuaidh, and the islands had a small permanent population into the twentieth century, until a tragedy in October 1927, when ten young men from the islands drowned during a sudden storm while fishing, effectively ending settled life there. The midden on the island sits within that long arc of human presence, though precisely which period or periods it represents is not recorded here. What is certain is that wherever people fished, gathered shellfish, and made their lives on a rocky Atlantic island, they left behind exactly this kind of deposit.
Middens are essentially ancient rubbish heaps, the organic residue of daily meals and domestic life, and they are among the most informative features an archaeologist can encounter. What they lack in spectacle they more than compensate for in detail, preserving traces of diet, season, trade, and technology across centuries or even millennia.
The Inishkea islands were inhabited for a very long time. Early Christian monks settled on Inis Gé Thuaidh, and the islands had a small permanent population into the twentieth century, until a tragedy in October 1927, when ten young men from the islands drowned during a sudden storm while fishing, effectively ending settled life there. The midden on the island sits within that long arc of human presence, though precisely which period or periods it represents is not recorded here. What is certain is that wherever people fished, gathered shellfish, and made their lives on a rocky Atlantic island, they left behind exactly this kind of deposit.
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