A midden is a rubbish dump where the household would regularly throw their trash, mostly ash from the hearth. Middens like this can tell archaeologists what the people consumed.
The midden is relatively large. It is estimated to be from the 10th-14th centuries because tephra from 940 was found at the bottom and 1362 tephra on top. How many generations of use has this midden seen?
Here you can see how the midden is made of different layers and how archaeologists excavate them one by one.
Different materials and situations give the layers their color.
The midden is rich with artefacts. Mostly the artefacts are related to the household activities like whetstones, weights, knives, game pieces, spindle whorls, iron artefacts, strike-a-lights and pottery.
The most surprising finds from the midden are the pottery shards because pottery from this period of Icelandic history is almost unknown.
Long term trends can be analyzed from middens but also moments of daily life like this weight that broke mid-production to the annoyance of the maker.
Often middens are to archaeologists like a treasure chest since they can give a lot of information about peoples life in the past