A few years back I found a treasure trove of stuff between two chimnies in
a house (one chimney from 1865 the other from about 1890).  Medicine
bottles of all sorts, a tin for shoe black, another for baking powder,
orange peels, peanut shells, corset ribs (the fabric eaten away), a tooth
brush, corks, corn cobs, teasles, wool, a toy horse and gun, two glass
enemas (broken - ouch), lamp crystals, string, cutouts from lithographs in
childrens magazines, you name it...  (What was great was that I had done
extensive research on the family and property and knew who most of this
stuff was associated with.  The big room adjacent to the 1890 chimney was
known by the original family as the "Wool Room" where they had a large loom
and several spinning wheels, etc. - thus explaining the presence of the
teasles and wool clumps.  I can't figure out the use of the corn cobs,
unless they were the "lacerating cobs" mentioned in the poem "Passing of
the Backhouse" falsely attributed to James Whitcomb Riley.)
http://www.jldr.com/ohst.html

Also when I was doing construction such finds as old shoes were not uncommon.

The point is that walls and cellars and construction trenches make great
places to chuck stuff away.  How much of the stuff found in such secluded
haunts would have never survived in the typical archaeological environment?

        Dan W.