midden
MID-un
A refuse heap left by animals — most commonly a squirrel's pile of stripped pinecone scales and cores at the base of a tree, accumulated over years or generations. The term also applies to the debris piles of pack rats (which can be thousands of years old and are used by paleontologists to reconstruct ancient plant communities). In archaeology, midden refers to human refuse heaps, particularly shell middens along coastlines.
Etymology
Scandinavian — Danish mødding, from møg (muck) + dynge (heap). Applied to both human and animal refuse.
Notes
Already entered in the human-made section for the archaeological sense. This animal-behavior sense deserves its own note — especially the pack rat middens, which are extraordinary natural archives.
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