Kathy Brooks, age 14, of McAllen, Texas, for her question:

WHAT IS A KITCHEN MIDDEN?

A kitchen midden is a mound of rubbish that was left behind by the early inhabitants of an archeaological site. Such mounds were actually were actually the refuse piles of camps and villages thousands of years ago.

Tools made of bones and stone, shells of the shellfish used for food, bits of pottery and bones of animals and sometimes of humans were found in kitchen middens. Scientists who study kitchen middens can reconstruct the daily life patterns and changing customs of humans who lived before history was written.

Scientists first found the kitchen midden mounds in Denmark. The term comes from the Danish words which mean "kitchen leavings."

People have also studied mounds in other parts of Scandinavia and in northern Spain. Mounds left by Indians living along the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of North America have also been found.