The Midden, the chapter’s award-winning journal is published bimonthly in February, April, June, August, October and December.
What’s a Midden and why is the newsletter called that?
A Midden is:
- An old dump of waste, including shells, bones, pottery fragments and other ecofacts
- A rich resource for archeologists to study people of the past
- A word from Danish meaning mound
- A pile of debris that an octopus makes in front of its den to conceal the entrance
- The name of the Galveston Bay Area chapter’s bi-monthly newsletter
- All of the above
If you answered f, you are right!
Shell midden mounds are found in coastal or lakeshore zones all over the world and are thought to be primarily the creation of nomadic groups or hunting parties. As items were tossed on the mound, layers were created.
There are middens scattered around the area, built up over thousands of years. A number of distinct native american groups lived in the area, for approximately 8,000 years. There are a dozen identified archeological sites on Armand Bayou and its tributaries: campsites, middens, and one burial site.
Now we come to our chapter newsletter, a repository of knowledge and a historic record of our journey. The newsletter has been called the Midden from the first issue in February 2001. Doris Heard, a member of that first class and Vice President at the time, suggested the name and it stuck. Reading past issues is like uncovering layers of information, written by members from the past and present, reflecting current interests and timeless concerns. Our current editor, Diane Humes, wrote that her husband says, “Just dump it in the Midden.” And so we have, for 20 years, and hopefully for many more.