By David Black, UNB–Anthropology
As a self-described paleoethnomalacologist, one of my chief obsessions in archaeology is human interactions with shellfish in the past. When we began excavating AlDf-24 this summer, Matt Betts and I believed that the shell content on the midden was composed almost completely of soft-shelled clams (steamer clams) collected by ancient Mi’kmaq people as food, and shucked on the midden— their shells discarded to form the mound we see today. The one midden sample I have completely sorted so far reinforces this belief; by volume, it is composed of soft-shelled clamshells (90%) and black soil (10%).
In most areas of the midden we have excavated to a depth of ca. 1 metre - 90% of the volume excavated is clam shell. Note for any archaeologists that might be reading: we have to taper our walls to avoid a collapse of the large unbroken clam valves in the walls.
However, as so often is the case in archaeology, the story is not that simple. Over the past two weeks of excavation I have kept a running list of shellfish species identified in the midden as we excavate. The number of species now stands at ten:
marine bivalves
1) soft-shelled (steamer) clam (Mya arenaria)
2) Atlantic surf clam (Spisula solidissima)
3) blue (edible) mussel (Mytilus edulis)
4) common razor clam (Ensis directus)
marine snails
5) northern moon snail (Lunatia heros)
6) northern (waved) whelk (Buccinum undatum)
a sea urchin
7) green sea urchin (Strongylocentrotus droebachiensis)
and (at least) three species on land snails
8) a garden snail (probably Helicidae)
9) a disc snail (probably Discidae)
10) an amber snail (probably Succineidae)
… I expect more.
Part of my work with the E’se’get Archaeology Project will be considering how each of these shellfish species came to be part of the midden and what their presence can tell us about past human behaviour and the environments that ancestral Mi’kmaq lived in.
Crushed blue mussel shell in the midden.
An Atlantic surf clam sticks out like a sore thumb in a midden full of soft-shelled clam.
