that similar changes apparent on the eastern coast of North America reflected the appearance of highly productive coastal resources following sea level stabilization. These resources were capable of supporting increasing numbers of hunter-gatherers attracted by the ease with which these resources could be exploited.

Prior to the early 1980s, little account had been taken of the postdepositional processes affecting midden structure. As part of the general trend toward identifying noncultural factors influencing the pattern of archaeological evidence, midden analysts began to incorporate the effects of dynamic coastal processes on the archaeological record. Although the influence of postdepositional factors such as storm activity had been recognized since the early 1970s (Hughes and Sullivan 1974), it was not until the early 1980s that the impact of geomorphological processes on sites brought the earlier behavioral explanation into question. Mike Rowland (1983) suggested that the spatial distribution of midden sites in eastern Australia, their internal structure, and their contents are as much a product of geomorphological change owing to coastal processes of erosion and deposition as of human behavior. Associated with geomorphological considerations, methodological issues of sampling and quantification (Bowdler 1983) and taphonomic studies such as differential preservation of shell species (Stein 1982) also became popular in midden analysis.

By the mid-1980s, regional approaches to coastal archaeology had largely replaced the behavioral interpretation of individual sites (Attenbrow 1999), and the change led to the inclusion of open midden sites in research. Open sites, in particular shell scatters with no associated artifactual material, had hitherto been largely overlooked in favor of stratified in situ deposits— in part because noncultural processes such as storm activity (Beaton 1985) and birds also create midden scatters. The need to identify open midden scatters of cultural origin led to the development of sets of criteria for establishing their cultural origin (Bowdler 1983). These criteria looked at the range, habitat, and size of the species present and provided a systematic means of assessing midden sites for the purpose of cultural heritage management (Attenbrow 1992).

The number of published midden analyses declined rapidly through the early 1980s. This decline may have been a reaction to the acknowledgment of the effect of noncultural processes on the structure and pattern of middens in the present, and the limits that this effect places on understanding past behavior. This fact, coupled with the shift away from site specific analyses and, at least in Australia, an emphasis on Pleistocene archaeology, appears to have sidelined midden archaeology in Australia, Europe, and the Americas. In contrast, the late 1980s and early 1990s saw a resurgence in midden archaeology in the southwestern Pacific owing to the excavation of a large number of midden sites as part of the Lapita homeland project (Allen and Gosden 1991). Deposits excavated in island Melanesia provided the first detailed evidence of a Pleistocene colonization of the Pacific along with associated marine economies and shell artifact technology (Smith and Allen 1999).

During the 1990s, issues of cultural heritage management were the main focus of shell midden archaeology. Midden recording and excavation were, and are, primarily undertaken in response to the demands of increasing development in coastal areas. Midden deposits are likely to be directly impacted by the development process and indirectly affected by the altering of coastal processes as a consequence of development (Smith 1998). In Australia, the involvement of aboriginal owners in the management process has emphasized the cultural significance of middens in the present.

The key issues for midden analysts are still those of Worsaae in the nineteenth century—how can a human origin be established for a midden deposit and what human behavior does the midden deposit reflect? The history of midden analysis is, therefore, not a story of increasing knowledge about the past so much as an increasing recognition of the complexity of processes creating archaeological deposits in general.

Anita Smith

References

Allen, J., and C. Gosden, eds. 1991. The Report of