Middens are accumulations of domestic waste, typically shells, animal bones, ash, and discarded tools, left behind by communities who lived and ate in the same place over long periods of time. They are among the most informative features an archaeologist can encounter, capable of revealing diet, season of occupation, species now locally extinct, and the rhythms of daily life in ways that more obviously dramatic monuments cannot. The fact that one survives at Dooghmakeon, in this quiet corner of Mayo, is a small but telling detail about the depth of human settlement along the Irish Atlantic coast.