REFUSE AND THE FORMATION OF MIDDENS

The prodigious quantities of refuse recovered from excavations at Runn ymede Bridge, Berkshire, England - and at other late prehistoric Briti sh sites - highlight those archaeological entities Mie call 'rubbish' and 'middens'. What is a 'midden'? General thoughts on an archaeology of refuse are applied to the specific case of these 1st-millennium BC sites in southern England in an attempt to comprehend their origin and scale in terms of the period's social geography.