Colleagues

This is all very interesting and leads to a few questions that I think we would do well to think about.

What were the opportunities for getting rid of unwanted ceramics?  If there was a change in a household such as a marriage that brought in a dowry or existing household set of ceramics, and the old lot was to be gotten rid of, where did this go?

The plantation archaeology stuff I've read indicates that material moved from the big house down to attached domestic users / slaves and in Australia I think this went on in pastoral stations with material going down the line within the property, but not generally outside the property.

In urban areas recycling through transfer to charities and rag and bone dealers may have been possible.  Where did it go in other contexts and what are the range of options that were available?  Maybe in rural areas the easiest thing was to tip it all down the toilet.

I would like to know what demonstrable processes account for the movement of second hand ceramics from one property or ownership to another.  Did households routinely keep older pieces as spares or strive to maintain sets of similar designs and chuck the oddments, or was this a class thing?  When I find 1820s pottery in an 1920s context am I looking at heirlooms or odd survivors or a  well structured pattern of reuse that operated commercially?

In my own kitchen there are sad and lonely remnants of earlier dinner sets which form the pile of extra plates that get pulled out when we have many mouths to feed or kids want to play.  Its very tempting to extrapolate patterns of ceramic usage from my kitchen back in time and I think there may be merits in the ethnoarchaeology of garage sales but it would be useful to know what others have come across.

Denis



** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** 
Denis Gojak
Heritage Asset Manager
NSW Department of Urban Affairs and Planning
2-10 Wentworth Street
Parramatta NSW 2150
PO Box 404 Parramatta 2124
Ph:    +61 2 9895 7940
Fax:   +61 2 9895 7946
Email: [log in to unmask]

>>> [log in to unmask] 02/28 12:20 am >>>
To all with a privy interest,

        Following up on Megan's comments, from 1989 through '91 I excavated
a c. 1760 to 1989 farmstead in Topsham, Maine, for a DOT project.  Three
privies were found, and one was full of complete (but broken) ceramics.  In
that privy we found 5 redware vessels, 12 creamware, and 17 pearlware
pieces, all complete. We found only one glass bottle and a few other datable
pieces, but not much.  The family was fairly well-to-do.  In 1860 the eldest
son brought his new bride home to live and three years later his mother
died.  It would seem the bride either cleaned out the kitchen when she moved
in or when the mother died, and dumped what she didn't want in the privy.
The undecorated creamware could represent four sets, while the transfer
printed pearlware represented ten different sets.  So the wife appears to
have been throwing out odd pieces as opposed to complete sets.

        A detailed listing/analysis of the ceramics was included in the
report.  It was published in "The Maine Archaeological Society Bulletin",
Vol. 33:1 Spring 1993.

Regards, Lee Cranmer
Maine Historic Preservation Commission

-----Original Message-----
From: Ron May [mailto:[log in to unmask]] 
Sent: Tuesday, February 27, 2001 2:47 AM
To: HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY
Cc: Cranmer, Leon
Subject: Re: Privies


In a message dated 2/26/01 4:52:33 PM Pacific Standard Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:

<< I agree... isn't there a hypothesis that whole sets of dishes, etc. found
 their way down privies when the female head of household changed? (i.e.
 from first wife to second, or from mother to bride)? Is this in Diane
 diZerega Wall's "The Archaeology of Gender", or am I thinking of another
 source? >>

Megan,

Now that one escaped me, but I also heard that masses of shirt buttons meant
the men never salvaged buttons because they did not make new shirts. Hence,
the hypothesis that masses of buttons in privies and dumps means male gender
occupation. This concept has been kicking around for at least 20 years, but
I
do not know a source to cite or data to support it. On the other had, I did
inherit my grandma's button jar and think there is merit to the idea.

Wow, talk about spite!  But, my folks probably would never had dumped sets
of
tableware because until the 1920s they could not afford them. A woman would
have really had to be making a statement for that kind of behavior. Then
again, people of the upper gentry would have had the money for that kind of
fashion turnover. Maybe class distinctions are the key to the tableware
changes?

Ron May