Midden, Ballyvodock, Co. Cork

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Settlement Sites

Midden, Ballyvodock, Co. Cork

On a south-facing limestone cliff above the estuary north of Great Island and Brown Island in Cork Harbour, there is a heap of discarded shells that nobody has been able to find again.

A midden, for those unfamiliar with the term, is essentially an ancient rubbish deposit, most often composed of the shells of oysters, mussels, or other molluscs left behind after meals over many generations. They are unremarkable to look at, frequently mistaken for natural accumulations, and this one, heavily overgrown and sitting on a crumbling cliff edge, has apparently slipped back into the landscape entirely.

The deposit was recorded by Schlichting in 1973, who described a shell layer roughly twenty-five feet long and twelve inches thick at its centre. It is not a vast accumulation by midden standards, but it is substantial enough to suggest repeated, purposeful use of the spot over some period of time. What makes it slightly more interesting than a pile of old shells is the single sherd of coarse black pottery recovered from a rabbit burrow immediately below the midden. Rabbits are reliable, if accidental, excavators; their burrows frequently turn up material that would otherwise remain buried for centuries. The pottery fragment has not been precisely dated in the available record, but coarse dark-bodied wares of this kind are broadly associated with prehistoric and early medieval activity along the Irish coastline. The site has not been relocated since Schlichting's visit, which means the cliff edge, the vegetation, and possibly the rabbits have effectively reclaimed it.

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Pete F
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