Word: midden
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...pack-rat midden is a snapshot of the flora and fauna existing within about 50 m ((164 ft.)) of the midden at the time it was accumulating," explains Peter Wigand, a paleoecologist at the University of Nevada's Desert Research Institute. Scientists can pin down the approximate time the snapshot was taken by radiocarbon dating of a preserved twig or fecal pellet; the technique can date specimens that are more than 40,000 years old. And by studying middens of different vintages in the same area, researchers can in effect create a movie from a sequence of snapshots, showing changes...
...whatever name, the investigation of middens is paying off with a host of new insights about the past. Using midden evidence of tree growth and distribution in the Mojave Desert, botanist W. Geoffrey Spaulding of the University of Washington determined that average desert temperatures during the height of the last Ice Age, about 18,000 years ago, were 6 degreesC (11 degrees F) colder than they are today...
...midden study covering 11,000 years of vegetation change in New Mexico's Chaco Canyon, Julio Betancourt of the U.S. Geological Survey and Thomas Van Devender of the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum found evidence that could explain why a once thriving Anasazi Indian community was abandoned 800 years ago. Simply stated, the Indians eventually used all the surrounding pine trees for their dwellings and firewood, depleting the woodland and eroding the farmland vital to the tribe's survival...
...squirrels live off seed cones from the Engleman spruce that they stockpile for winter. Each squirrel collects its own midden or pile of closed cones...
...they have contemplated leaving their small one-story house which is Midden on the bay side of Route just before the Wellfleet. Truro town-line. Rising building costs have prevented them from buying a larger home, a move they have wanted to make for their two children. So late last fall. David, who teaches math in a public high school, applied for jobs in western Massachusetts. Their plans fell through, however, and with the economy in its present shape he cannot afford to give up his present job and hunt...