I don't recall any privies or latrine trenches at Santa Elena, in South Carolina (1560s to 80s), but they did excavate some shallow barrel wells.


Carl Steen



-----Original Message-----
From: Mark Howe <[log in to unmask]>
To: HISTARCH <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thu, Jun 28, 2012 10:20 am
Subject: Re: Spanish Colonial wells/privies


I think using pXRF would help to clarify some information also. We used this on 
a privy at Keyesville, CA on some interesting profiles. 
Also, I dont know if my posts are coming thru, can someone just send me an email 
here to make sure. I never see my posts. Thanks. 

 
 
 
Mark Howe 

"Life is how you make it, the future is how you leave your past." 




> Date: Thu, 28 Jun 2012 09:12:36 -0500
> From: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Spanish Colonial wells/privies
> To: [log in to unmask]
> 
> Heck, after 30plus years off and on fieldwork at Washington, Arkansas 
> (Southern blend of Anglo and African Americans with other passersby 
> mixed thoroughly,1824 to present), I've about concluded that the 
> population there until after 1900 either used chamber pots (we've 
> found fragments), went to various accepted but un-named loci (as did 
> an entire family around a tree in a park in downtown Luxembourg not 
> long after this "innocent abroad" landed there in July 1969 via 
> Icelandic Airlines--I stopped sitting near trees) (and then two weeks 
> later in Ireland, there were the distinctly separate exterior walls 
> of adjacent buildings specified for male and female customers, behind 
> a small-town pub), or didn't go to the bathroom at all (most people 
> in novels don't).  After 1900 (late October???) lots of privies were 
> in use, including WPA precast concrete tops.
> 
> We should well thank the John D. Rockefeller Foundation and other 
> philanthropic organizations in the early 1900s whose efforts to 
> improve sanitation (particularly but not exclusively in the U.S. 
> South) lin the light of scientific discoveries about the germ theory 
> of disease, led to a remarkable decline in cases of hookworm plus 
> various other major health improvements. A side effect of great 
> benefit was the promotion of pits beneath  privies, noisome but 
> "necessary" (an olde Englishe name for a privy of course). Some were 
> designed to be cleaned out regularly, but happily it was advised that 
> most be filled (one hopes with domestic refuse) and replaced by 
> another fillable pit elsewhere.  Eventually these facilities were 
> moved onto porches or built awkwardly inside the house, with drain 
> fields of coarse stoneware pipe  staining the surrounding in situ 
> matrix a very nice 10YR 3/2 3/4 regardless of the soils' original 
> nature. Though, as an informant passed on to me from his grandfather 
> in Washington circa 1925, "bringing that business inside the house 
> was disgusting." In retrospect, it probably is, indeed.
> 
> At 07:41 PM 6/22/2012, you wrote:
> >I have not yet encountered any definite Spanish privies in my work in
> >Hispanic California, though there are plenty from Anglo and 
> >Asian-American ones
> >in later phases of occupation at the Presidio of Santa Barbara. We did find a
> >well of still yet undetermined date at the same site.   I suspect that the
> >privies are more likely in military sites which are early and in the
> >Southeast, at a point less remote from the center of civilization, 
> >such as St.
> >Augustine or other sites in Florida.
> >
> >The major question for me is what did the Spanish do about waste disposal
> >at mission sites such as San Antonio de Padua where there were up to 1300
> >Indians.   Chamber pots worked well for the 2 padres, five soldiers, and
> >possible one or two others of European or mestizo origins, but were 
> >impractical
> >for the large numbers of neophytes.   With the health ramifications of this
> >issue, I cannot believe that this was just left to informal chance.   In the
> >1790s, the Spanish were learning much more about the nature of disease and
> >the role of public health.   However, so far we have found no traces 
> >of trench
> >latrines anywhere.   I believe chemical analysis of the soil is the best
> >bet for revealing this, as it leaves little visible trace behind.
> >
> >Bob Hoover