Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
A pack rat midden is a debris pile constructed by a woodrat. A midden may preserve the materials incorporated into it for up to 50,000 years. [citation needed] These midden piles may be analyzed to reconstruct their original environment, and comparisons between middens allow a record of vegetative and climate change to be built.
This is a feasible strategy to avoid food shortage. It is the habit of collecting and storing both food and nonfood items that has earned the eastern woodrat is other common name of "pack-rat" or "trade rat". [17] Starting in September, the woodrat will start to forage and store food in its midden for use and survival in the winter. [18]
Examination of pack rat middens revealed that at the time that Pueblo Bonito was built, Chaco Canyon and the surrounding areas were wooded by trees such as ponderosa pines. Evidence of such trees can be seen within the structure of Pueblo Bonito, such as the first-floor support beams.
The bushy-tailed woodrat, or packrat (Neotoma cinerea) is a species of rodent in the family Cricetidae found in Canada and the United States. [2] Its natural habitats are boreal forests , temperate forests, dry savanna , temperate shrubland , and temperate grassland .
Wood rat (Neotoma lepida) midden. Woodrats construct houses for nesting, food caching, and predator escape. These can have up to six entrances and eight internal chambers, including both nests and food caches. Houses 36 cm (14 in) high and around 100 cm (39 in) across at the base are not unusual. [3]
Initially, when their diachronic nature was less evident, they were viewed as the poor relation to the better studied pack rat middens. [37] [38] While pack rat middens are rich in identifiable macrofossils, which can be directly dated and provide high taxonomic resolution, hyrax middens are poor in macroremains. Those that are found are almost ...
Analysis of pack rat midden indicates that, with the exception of invasive species such as tumbleweed and clover, the flora and fauna in the area have remained relatively consistent for the past 4,000 years. [108]
A midden, by definition, contains the debris of human activity, and should not be confused with wind- or tide-created beach mounds. Some shell middens are processing remains: areas where aquatic resources were processed directly after harvest and prior to use or storage in a distant location.