Very interesting...cross cultural word usage!
We took a trip to Saddler's Woods; there was a midden heap there with artifacts from the railroad era that we were given permission to dig in. I found some interesting pottery sherds there.
There would certainly be American Indian "middens" here in Cumberland County, I just called them "Amerindian/Native American dumps". Digging is a big pasttime round here.
Here in Jersey, the most common form of burial was placing the body in the ground. They were buried in a fetal position in many cases, sometimes sitting inclined partially upright. In other cases they were put flat on some kind of "table" to decompose-usually if passing through an area seasonally, then they would pick up the remains on the way back, or laid in the ground in parallel bundles of bones called "bundle burials" until they could pick them up, take them home, and rebury them. Those bodies could be in graves, or in refuse disposal, like the Abbott Farm. There were also a couple of areas that did have elaborate rituals that included cremation during the Woodland period, including a site near the Abbott Farm, but they were unusual, and I think there were a few records of some earlier Native American cremations (but I am not sure).
Renee
