im finding alot of smaller shells, lighter color dirt and even bone ,but not alot of flint.should i keep digging until im out of the midden?

If you find bone deep .. you arn't deep enough !

That bone didn't wiggle its way down there by itself ya know!

When you hit bottom , you will know it !

BED ROCK DUDE! That is the bottem - There are LOTS of layers in different camps - rains - floods - BBQ - LOTS of stuff can be down there!

Michelle

the bones im finding are not very deep,maybe one foot down.i would say ive dug three feet down.the dirt is kind of sandy with small small pebbles?

Jake, You may have stumbled on a little mentioned fact of ORIGINAL midden camp digging . Fire rock, snails, flakes & bones are the common factors at various levels BUT the actual ground that the inhabitants really walked on can have a "CRINKLE" character.

Sounds a bit like your soil description. Keep noting what might be in the crinkle. . . . BUT . . . dont celebrate yet....That may be the camp level but not necessarily a big producing zone [ Some of my camp level areas, I am sure was where the poison ivy bushes
were the thickest ! ]

Thanks,ill just keep digging and hope for the best.I could be in what i like to call a trash area.Basiclly, thats were the indians threw all their snails and bones.not much flint?

can you respond to that last coment,SH? I would love to learn more.

J, The word midden litterally translates to a trash dump. Not in the modern sense with beer cans and olds TVs but with limestone fire rock, some animal scraps may have occasionally been tossed in.

Ponder on the very FIRST family that started a small oven / firepit. . . . They would have gathered around the edges for for warmth or socialising around the food source. NOBODY was sitting ON the fireplace, anything dropped or mislaid would have been around the perimeter of said fire [ midden ].
As time goes by [ 5000 plus years ! ] the fire area gets larger so the people are pushed farther back.
"Good" artifacts are being continuously covered over by " new spent firerock "
Thats why the outside of mounds is the best place to dig [ maybe the tents or shelters were 100 feet away !] Time permitting, to find all the artifacts, the entire midden rock mound would have to be looked UNDER. IF it was possible to determine where that very first fire was started, , , , ,THAT will be where the
very oldest artifacts will be found !

Some burned rock middens can be an acre in size, UNDER a couple of feet of aluvial topsoil.

wow!Thats alot of great info.Thank you so much.