I wanted to thank everyone who took the time to respond to my request. Very
informative and interesting. Thank you again.
John M. Foster, RPA Greenwood-Associates.com 310.454.3091 tel/fax 310.717.5048
cell
________________________________
From: Conrad Bladey <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Sat, July 24, 2010 5:13:18 AM
Subject: Re: Questions about residential deposit
Interesting
-I would suggest that any time one gets a single episode disposal event
that something produced it.
-We will always have multiple senerios, models available to explain it.
(traqnsport of ceramics/breakage, change of women in household,
catestrophic failure of furniture or shelving, wild party, ((no one has
mentioned the greek dance LOL)))) etc...
-Unless there is documentation then there will be loads of speculation.
Some more interesting as in the potential link to change of women in
household.
(be careful the husband could just as well have cleaned house as the
woman wishing to present or inflict on her a "new start" possibly with
little input from her)
-The most important thing IMHO concerning large single episode disposal
events is the manner of disposition of the materials within the total
framework of site formation.
(surface sheet midden, encorporation in paths, use for drainage in
foundation, adaptive re-use of sherds, use of materials by children play
activities, more or less labor intensive disposal means - elaborate pits
vs toss/dump behavior, disposal associated with possible culturally
perceived negative aspects of the materials- saturation with smelly
substance, poison, sticky substance, association with disease....
etc............. (I would treat any residue found on large deposits very
seriously)
- The manner of disposal and its relation to site structure is most
useful when it can be compaired to a neighborhood or region and
neighborhood to generate trends related to other cultural indicators-
sub culture, ethnicity, race, and class, profession.......unfortunately
we generally find only issolated sites and not neighborhoods of sites
being excavated. It is of dubious value to compare site structure when
it is done between regions and disconnected neighborhoods.
-Of value of course would be the tracking of disposal pattern changes in
one site. Did the occupants repeatedly generate large disposal events
and how were they treated differently through time.
Sometime someone should excavate a greek (I think the custom may be
strongest in Crete but have no idea) ethnic community which if the plate
smashing accompanying dancing and eating prevailed would have generated
quite a few single episode disposal events over time. Adittionally it
would not be too far off base to suggest that certain religious beliefs
would create cleansing behaviors that would lead to the destruction of
the ceramics of a person who had died. I know of no instances of this
but worth a thought. I do recall that Binford I think reported that
Australian groups burned the residential unit including artifacts of a
person who had died and then moved on.
Of course in my home a place where the two women inmates tend not to be
able to curate ceramics and or glass we have transitioned as much as
possible to metal and plastic. I even switched my nativity scene from
fine porcelain to concrete folowing breakage only for them to drop the
large heavy concrete baby Jesus and break his arm off. Attitudes toward
curation of material objects are also intresting. Could slippery "butter
fingers'' be a genetic limitation.....are there cultural smashers and
curators? The survival of large compete sets of ceramics over large
periods of time amazes me just as do the cat food ads which show a cat
eating its premium food surrounded by fine furniture and upholstery one
wonders what they do with all the hair balls.
Conrad
Suzanne Spencer-Wood wrote:
>Dear John, consider the possibility of a new wife throwing out old ceramics
>when she married a widower. There are HA articles about sites where the
>archaeological evidence of mass discard of sets of ceramics corresponded to
>the date of arrival of a new wife in the house. In other cases daughters
>discarded old inherited ceramic sets after parents died.
>
>An SHA conference paper I remember connected mass discard of household
>ceramics to fear of contamination after an epidemic such as TB, prior to
>germ theory if I remember correctly.
>
>Genealogy could show whether a new wife arrived at the time of mass ceramic
>discard, and if reasons for death such as TB or other epidemic are given
>then you could see if that correlates with the date of discard.
>
>Here's the paragraph about this from my forthcoming book entitled American
>Genders and Sexualities (U. Press Florida 2011-12):
>
>Archaeological evidence has been excavated indicating that women controlled
>whiteware ceramic acquisition and disposal at some household sites from the
>18th century into the early 19th century. Women who controlled ceramic
>acquisition and discard also controlled the whiteware ceramics used for
>status display at dinners and teas, an important way of maintaining the
>image and reputation of the family. Excavations of four 18th century house
>sites have dated ceramic dumps to 12 changes in female heads of household,
>who each discarded the whiteware of the previous female head of household
>and bought new whiteware. These house sites provided excavated evidence of
>several wives, single women, and widows who controlled their household
>acquisition of whiteware ceramics for status display at dinners and teas.
>Since discard did not occur until there was a change in the woman in charge
>of the housework, this evidence indicates that the women rather than their
>husbands made the decisions to discard old ceramics and select new ones
>(Agnew 1995, Pinello 1995, Wheeler 2001).
>
>Agnew, Aileen B. 1995. Women and Property in early 19th Century Portsmouth,
>New Hampshire. *Historical Archaeology* 29(1): 62-75.
>
>Pinello, Martha E. 1995. changes in Female Lineages and archaeological
>Formation Processes at the Deer Street Archaeological Site, 1730-1830. Paper
>presented at the Society for Historical Archaeology 1995 Conference on
>Historical and Underwater Archaeology, Washington, D.C.
>
>Wheeler, Kathleen L. 2001. Women, Architecture and artifact. Paper presented
>at the 2001 SHA conference symposium entitled Feminist Historical
>Archaeologies of Intersections between Gender and Other Social Dimensions.
>Jan. 12, Long Beach.
>
>Just some ideas,
>suzanne
>
>On Thu, Jul 22, 2010 at 11:51 AM, John M. Foster, RPA <
>[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>
>
>>We have recently excavated a tightly dated deposit (1890s) of residential
>>artifacts. The majority of the deposit appears to be ceramics from at
>>least
>>four British makers. Other items include pressed glass, glass candy dish,
>>perfume caddy, horse shoe (one), one French toothbrush, one large comb,
>>couple
>>of decomposed cans of indeterminate size, pickle jar, several Prosser
>>buttons,
>>condiment bottle, sets of glass stemware, window glass, and one ceramic
>>doll or
>>figurine face. There was no cutlery, cooking ware, tools, and very little
>>bone.
>>
>>Based on weathering of broken edges, it appears that the items were broken
>>elsewhere, as opposed to fresh fractures from excavation, and then
>>deposited in
>>a prepared pit (3 x 3 x 2 feet). Only one whole bottle was recovered. All
>>the
>>ceramics were broken and appear to be from several sets of plain white
>>earthenware dishes. The artifacts appear to be average or slightly above
>>in
>>cost. We are investigating the possibility that the artifacts may have
>>resulted
>>from a single episode of deposition. The question is what might have
>>occasioned
>>mass destruction of a collection of dining ware? We are investigating
>>earthquakes which are well-known for the area but would be interested in
>>other
>>possibilities, which brings us to this list. Any comments or suggestions
>>would
>>be appreciated.
>>
>> John M. Foster, RPA Greenwood-Associates.com 310.454.3091 tel/fax
>>310.717.5048
>>cell
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>
>
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