As boy growing up in the suburbs of Richmond, VA during the 1960s, I
played with jacks with girls and boys, but not much; had marbles, but
never really knew how to shot them; and don't remember anyone playing
marbles at school, we played Indian baseball and kick ball. A younger
friend had his grandfather's bag of marbles, which included all
varieties and a chain to make a shooting ring, but they didn't mean much
to us. What I found marbles best for was placing in a sling shot and
shooting. Fortunately, our store-bought sling shots were not very sturdy
or powerful, and windows, birds, and squirrels had little to fear from
us. Archaeologically, you could find our perfectly good marbles
scattered throughout the neighborhood, wherever they fell.
 
As for crown tops, Humpty Dumpty magazine showed how to use them as
gears. One could nail a series of tops to a board, and if you spaced
them properly and your parents didn't bend them too badly during removal
from the bottle, by turning one, you could turn all just like toothed
gears. Later, crown tops, or rather screw-off  tops from beer bottles
became amusements when we learned how to shoot them. By holding them
upside right between thumb and forefinger and snapping your fingers, you
could shoot them at a drinking buddy. When you did it right, the top
would go whizzing at the target or beyond ... so much for Binford's drop
zone.
 
This is a fun thread and certainly should make us aware that our
personal experiences cannot form the sole basis for artifact
interpretation; however, our experiences can certainly contribute to
interpretations, especially when we remember that people of the past
were just as creative and devious as we are and found a variety of ways
to use things, other than intended, to suit their needs.
 
michael m. gregory
Great Lakes Archaeological Research Center
Milwaukee, Wisconsin