54. Possible Relatives in the Americas

Grandi kitchen midden (Tierra del Fuego, Chile)

by George Weber

Location of the Grandi kitchen midden.

Kitchen midden are accumulated piles of debris, often of shells of mussles and suchlike, that over centuries and milenniums can reach considerable size. There are a lot of such midden along the coasts of Tierra del Fuego but only a few have been archaeologically investigated.

One kitchen midden that has been investigated is Grandi at the southwestern corner of Navarino island.

The kitchen midden shows the layers of refuse accumulated over time. In this case, the oldest layers were dated to around 3,900 years ago. The many white spots are sea shells that were thrown away after their content had been extracted. Midden occur in many parts of the world (for more information on kitchen midden and how they are built up and used, see Andaman Archaeology)

Unusually, the Grandi kitchen midden contained the body of an adult human dated to around 4,000 years ago. Although kitchen midden are not infrequently used as burial grounds by later people (i.e. after the midden is no longer used to dump refuse), such a find in Tierra del Fuego is a first. Unusual is that the dead person was buried under the midden, i.e. before the midden had started to accumulate. The skeleton was well preserved, articulate and with all teeth, said its discoverer, archaeologist Monica Saleme. The tall (1.7 m) body was buried in the foetal position on its right side, with the left hand under the head and knees close to the chest.

Worked bones of birds were also found: they were finely polished to the point of being needle-like. Several of the bones also show traces of burning

Other midden deposits indicate that several species of cormorants were hunted at least since the late Pleistocen from southern Peru to Fuego-Patagonia.

Together with cormorants and steamer ducks, penguins were common prey for Fuegian and Patagonian hunters but they are absent in this midden.

No extinct species were found in the sample and no range extensions were demonstrated, indicating a similar bird assemblage of the sample to that found in the area today. This agrees with previous works in that bird assemblages of southern South America have changed little during the Holocene, both at the genus and species level,.

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Last change 31 March 2007