Daniel & HISTARCHERS,
 
I saw no on-list responses to your query, so thought I ought to reply to
your posting about archaeological reuse and recycling.  What you bring
up in your lengthy e-mail about "negative evidence", reuse, and
recycling, is of extreme importance to archaeologists, one that you
correctly insinuate in your posting is often not given the attention it
deserves.  After all, what is the one process ALL archaeological sites
around the world have in common: they were all ABANDONED.  It was not
obvious to me in your email post that you were aware of the available
archaeological abandonment literature.  In short, let me give you the
one reference that culminates all available research (as of 1993), as
opposed to writing out a voluminous list; all relevant references you
should find in the following book:
 
Catherine Cameron and Steven Tomka 1993 Abandonment of Settlements and
Regions: Ethnoarchaeological and Archaeological Approaches.  New
directions in Archaeology Series, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
 
Hopefully you can find this pivotal work at your local library or
university library.  If they do not have it, they will be able to send
away for it via inter-library loan.
 
I too addressed these concerns in my own dissertation, finished just a
few months ago.  Half of it was concerned solely with delineating the
effects of abandonment on different structures at turn-of-the-twentieth
century cabins in interior Alaska.  Using the "knowns" available through
a variety of historical sources, I attempted to quantify the "negative
evidence" you refer to in your post.  I do it by (1) examining the
number of "complete" versus "non-complete" artifacts in a feature, (2)
examining the number of "useful" versus "non-useful" artifacts in a
feature, (3) the placement of artifacts in features, and (4) dating the
features by a variety of artifactual means.
 
These arguments are laid out in chapters 2 and 3:
 
Robin O. Mills 1998 Historic Archaeology of Alaskan Placer Mining
Settlements: Evaluating Process-Pattern Relationships. Unpublished Ph.D.
disseration, Anthropology Dept., University of Alaska Fairbanks,
Fairbanks.
 
If interested, you might also be able to interlibrary loan it, or else
it should be avialable through University Microfilms, Ann Arbor (also
see your librarian).
 
Also, if no one else has passed on to you the references about the
experimental work with nails by Amy Young, write me back and I will give
them to you.
 
Thanks for your question.
 
Best from Fairbanks,
 
Robin