Dear John, consider the possibility of a new wife throwing out old ceramics
when she married a widower. There are HA articles about sites where the
archaeological evidence of mass discard of sets of ceramics corresponded to
the date of arrival of a new wife in the house. In other cases daughters
discarded old inherited ceramic sets after parents died.

An SHA conference paper I remember connected mass discard of household
ceramics to fear of contamination after an epidemic such as TB, prior to
germ theory if I remember correctly.

Genealogy could show whether a new wife arrived at the time of mass ceramic
discard, and if reasons for death such as TB or other epidemic are given
then you could see if that correlates with the date of discard.

Here's the paragraph about this from my forthcoming book entitled American
Genders and Sexualities (U. Press Florida 2011-12):

Archaeological evidence has been excavated indicating that women controlled
whiteware ceramic acquisition and disposal at some household sites from the
18th century into the early 19th century. Women who controlled ceramic
acquisition and discard also controlled the whiteware ceramics used for
status display at dinners and teas, an important way of maintaining the
image and reputation of the family. Excavations of four 18th century house
sites have dated ceramic dumps to 12 changes in female heads of household,
who each discarded the whiteware of the previous female head of household
and bought new whiteware. These house sites provided excavated evidence of
several wives, single women, and widows who controlled their household
acquisition of whiteware ceramics for status display at dinners and teas.
Since discard did not occur until there was a change in the woman in charge
of the housework, this evidence indicates that the women rather than their
husbands made the decisions to discard old ceramics and select new ones
(Agnew 1995, Pinello 1995, Wheeler 2001).

Agnew, Aileen B. 1995. Women and Property in early 19th Century Portsmouth,
New Hampshire. *Historical Archaeology*  29(1): 62-75.

Pinello, Martha E. 1995. changes in Female Lineages and archaeological
Formation Processes at the Deer Street Archaeological Site, 1730-1830. Paper
presented at the Society for Historical Archaeology 1995 Conference on
Historical and Underwater Archaeology, Washington, D.C.

Wheeler, Kathleen L. 2001. Women, Architecture and artifact. Paper presented
at the 2001 SHA conference symposium entitled Feminist Historical
Archaeologies of Intersections between Gender and Other Social Dimensions.
Jan. 12, Long Beach.

Just some ideas,
suzanne

On Thu, Jul 22, 2010 at 11:51 AM, John M. Foster, RPA <
[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> We have recently excavated a tightly dated deposit (1890s) of residential
> artifacts.  The majority of the deposit appears to be ceramics from at
> least
> four British makers.  Other items include pressed glass, glass candy dish,
> perfume caddy, horse shoe (one), one French toothbrush, one large comb,
> couple
> of decomposed cans of indeterminate size, pickle jar, several Prosser
> buttons,
> condiment bottle, sets of glass stemware, window glass, and one ceramic
> doll or
> figurine face.  There was no cutlery, cooking ware, tools, and very little
> bone.
>
> Based on weathering of broken edges, it appears that the items were broken
> elsewhere, as opposed to fresh fractures from excavation, and then
> deposited in
> a prepared pit (3 x 3 x 2 feet).  Only one whole bottle was recovered.  All
> the
> ceramics were broken and appear to be from several sets of plain white
> earthenware dishes.  The artifacts appear to be average or slightly above
> in
> cost. We are investigating the possibility that the artifacts may have
> resulted
> from a single episode of deposition. The question is what might have
> occasioned
> mass destruction of a collection of dining ware?  We are investigating
> earthquakes which are well-known for the area but would be interested in
> other
> possibilities, which brings us to this list.  Any comments or suggestions
> would
> be appreciated.
>
>  John M. Foster, RPA Greenwood-Associates.com 310.454.3091 tel/fax
> 310.717.5048
> cell
>
>