Carol Serr asked, "How can a dated bottle provide zero information on
function of a site?" Many bottles and jars were manufactured and shipped to companies
that filled the vessels with a wide range of contents and the bottles/jars
tell nothing about what the retailer sold or how the artifact functioned in the
site. A clear glass bottle could have held horse linament, root beer, food
sauce, or snake oil and none would be the wiser because all we often have is a
bottle with the manufacturer's mark or side panel embossing. I had hoped for new
definitions of contents based on lip shapes, side decorations, or bases (not
solely on basal marks or side embossing). After paper labels were invented and
embossing vanished, functional intepretation got almost impossible to
discern. And, yes, there are documented examples of scavengers selling recycled glass
bottles to beverage retailers.

Ron May
Legacy 106, Inc.