Affaldsdynger fra Stenalderen i Danmark Undersøgte for Nationalmuseet. Résumé en Francais.

It was the large shell pile at Ertebølle In the Limfjord, which was the main site of the commission's work. These kitchen middens provided completely new insights into prehistory, on a national as well as international level. Through the finds, it was possible to study the earliest organization of prehistoric societies. The commission's interdisciplinary work as well as the results of the First Kitchen Mødding Commission in the 1840s and 1850s have had an enormous influence on archaeologists' work with chronology in Danish prehistory and our knowledge of the Stone Age in general.

In the study it is concluded that they are not a unique type of coastal settlement but represent coastal, homebase settlements characterized by a dominance of shellfish in the cultural deposits. This is the only aspect by which they differ from the rest of the coastal habitation system. Shell midden sites seem to flourish in periods characterized by a rich marine biotope and coastal habitation can be seen as a direct reflection of variations/changes in the marine biotope.

The kitchen middens were a hot issue in the international debate in the later 19th century, palynology was developed there, and the registration of human impact in the primeval forests in the pollen record discovered and explained.

Denmark is regarded as being one of the core regions of Stone Age discoveries and hence also being a center for the development of ideas about Mesolithic and Neolithic societies. Later Scandinavian models for Mesolithic societies and their transition to farming were seen as representative for a far wider region, if not for the whole of Europe. 

Due to the extensive and important Danish research on kitchen middens, the Danish word ‘Køkkenmødding’ (also spelled ‘Kokkenmodding’) is often used in international archaeological literature.