Midden, Culleenduff, Co. Sligo

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Settlement Sites

Midden, Culleenduff, Co. Sligo

At Culleenduff in County Sligo, there is a recorded archaeological monument of a particularly unglamorous kind: a midden.

The word sounds almost dismissive, but a midden, essentially an ancient rubbish heap of discarded shells, bones, ash, and domestic debris, is among the most informative things an archaeologist can find. Where other monument types announce themselves with height or drama, a midden speaks quietly through accumulation, layer by layer, meal by meal, century by century. The fact that one has been formally recorded at Culleenduff places this small townland within a broader coastal and prehistoric story that stretches across the west of Ireland.

Middens are found throughout Ireland, particularly along coastlines and riverbanks where communities had reliable access to shellfish and fish. They range in date from the Mesolithic period, when hunter-gatherers left the earliest traces of settlement on the island, through to early medieval times. The shells most commonly found are limpet, periwinkle, and oyster, though the full contents of any given midden can include animal bone, pottery sherds, flint tools, and occasionally human remains. What survives at Culleenduff, and what condition the deposit is in, is not currently documented in available public sources, so the specifics of this particular site remain, for now, an open question.

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