Sigh it's too hot for this "a sort of horizontal accretional midden" & "in
places discretely circumscribed horizontal spreads" can not untangle these
quite, I can not no no no. Simple definitions? Please?
In conjunction with my charitable hoarder clean up, I've read two
interesting little books:
Paxton, Matt and Phaedra Hise
2011 The Secret Lives of Hoarders. True Stories of Tackling Extreme
Clutter. Peregree Books, New York.
(I've never watched his show.)
Tobias, Jens (CreateSpace.com)
2013 The Weekend Storage Warrior. Storage Auctions for Fun and Profit.
Self published, San Diego.
(Jens autographed my copy; he's related to an archaeologist I know.)
Both these authors understand and use archaeology in their writings.
Just curious, why don't you define these as hoarding?
"(A)bout 2 feet of mixed clothing"
How many "derelict cars" does one person need to keep? We literally had
acres of Lincolns in nearby Lincoln Acres; he certainly was a car hoarder.
And "multiple Dewey Beats Truman newspaper bundles and so forth. The sheer
volume was overwhelming"? Sounds hoardingish to me.
S. Walter
----- Original Message -----
From: "Lyle E. Browning" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, August 14, 2014 1:33 PM
Subject: Re: Hoarding
Hoarding in the current sense of a house full to the rafters of materials
isn't quite new. My cousins bought a house from the town Eccentric who had
millions, but who died of hypothermia in his bathtub where he slept. He
refused to pay electric bills or any other bills and put license plates on
his derelict cars in the back yard. This was in the early 1970's and his
vast collection of at least 7 dumpster loads of stuff started in the 1930's.
He had multiple Dewey Beats Truman newspaper bundles and so forth. The sheer
volume was overwhelming but it was not squalid.
The Archeological Society of VA inherited Kittiewan Plantation. The former
owner threw nothing away, but we don't define his behavior as hoarding. He
literally had 5 generations of kitchen stoves in his barn, newspapers, etc.
He collected items voraciously that were to him of some historic value. His
was a sort of horizontal accretional midden with the older stuff at the back
of the barn.
The bone piles mentioned earlier are a common feature of mechanized
agriculture. The feeling is that if the new stuff breaks down, the old is a
back-up, then it's a spare parts source until there are literally only the
pieces that will not fit another piece of equipment. Some of that is also
that counties charged disposal fees so it was easier to add to the bone pile
rather than to pay to have material hauled away. When trees grow up around
the equipment and it can't be easily extracted, it just sits. These are now
recorded as archaeological sites.
How much of this behavior has been lost to "recycling" is another matter.
When a house is unoccupied for a suitable period of time, what's inside
becomes sort of fair game and "salvage" goes on with what's left being the
detritus. I observed a former granary with about 2 feet of mixed clothing,
part of an Encyclopedia Britannica, college level chemistry and physics text
books, 33rpm records and so forth. Apparently the tenant had bought lots at
estate sales, kept what he wanted, sold the rest and dumped the detritus in
the granary. And to add to the fun, the machine lean-to off the edge had an
1880's cast iron corn sheller and other early farm equipment.
Rural depositories have different behaviors than urban ones with the most
obvious being that they are horizontal rather than vertical, even if in
places discretely circumscribed horizontal spreads.
Lyle Browning, RPA
On Aug 14, 2014, at 2:35 PM, Linda Hylkema <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> This is very interesting because we have just finished excavating an old
> residential area consisting of numerous working-class households and have
> numerous features (both trash burn-pits and privies) dating to about 1890
> to the 1950's. One set of contemporaneous and adjacent features
> (1930-40ish) from the same parcel have loads and loads of household stuff
> in addition to what might be considered normal trash. I wasn't sure if it
> was a house clean-out from a death or what...but hoarding did not occur to
> me until now.
>
> In addition to the usual faunal bone, bottles (lots of Duraglass,
> Owens-Corning and other diagnostic stuff), ceramics (everyday and nicer
> pieces) and whatnot, there are parts from numerous wood burning stoves,
> wagon wheels and other parts, multiple tricycles, bicycles, flashlights,
> electric Christmas lights, clothes fragments, numerous pairs of men's and
> children's leather shoes, toys, ink fountain pens (2), jewelry, pocket
> watches, lots of enamel ware, tools, bakelite dresser items, alarm clocks,
> a small framed picture, picture-hanging wire- it just goes on and on. It
> does appear that there are some heirloom ceramics from the late 1800's
> (need to research the maker's marks), and some manganese colored glass
> mixed in with the later stuff. However, it is clearly one depositional
> episode, as though someone dug some holes, dumped the stuff in, and
> covered
> it. We're just starting to catalog it now, so I don't have a complete
> picture of the assemblage yet.
>
> One would assume, if this were a place that trash was deposited over time,
> that the older stuff would obviously be at the bottom. However, in these
> features, old and newer are all jumbled together, which is why the
> hoarding
> idea is so intriguing. And yes, there was a little bit of dirt in there
> too...
>
> Our city historian is compiling information on the family that lived at
> that house per the city directory from that era, so maybe we can glean
> some
> behavioral info from that.
>
> Linda
>
> Linda Hylkema
> *Cultural Resources Manager, Santa Clara University*
> W: *408-554-4513* | C: *408-219-5748* | F: *408-551-1709* | 500 El Camino
> Real, Santa Clara, CA 95053
>
>
>
>
> On Wed, Aug 13, 2014 at 8:38 PM, Susan Walter <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>> Margie,
>>
>> You are right about definitions.
>> I have seen piles of rusted stuff that was being saved for its value as
>> metal, and for replacement parts on machinery.
>> People saved bottles and / or jars to reuse, buttons cut off for later
>> use, and rags saved for the ragman. Also, hoards in the sense of
>> valuables
>> like the pot of money buried for safekeeping.
>>
>> No, what I meant was the modern day usage of the term as in the show
>> Hoarders. A situation where stuff is saved and saved inside a residence
>> until there is basically more stuff than open space - like my shirt tail
>> relative in Montana who died decades ago whose house interior consisted
>> of
>> narrow passageways and stuff teetering everywhere. She had paper stuff
>> like junk mail, magazines, and lots of newspapers everywhere.
>>
>> I have been helping with the cleanout of a friend's place, and it is
>> actually rather like excavating, but without dirt. Its all stratified,
>> older stuff on the bottom or in shelves, and then there are the
>> "features"
>> of clusters of books, food items, hobby collections, etc.
>>
>> I got to wondering if anyone had had something like this but WITH dirt.
>>
>> S. Walter
>> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Margie Akin" <[log in to unmask]>
>> To: <[log in to unmask]>
>> Sent: Wednesday, August 13, 2014 1:48 PM
>> Subject: Re: Hoarding
>>
>>
>> Hello everyone- a few thoughts on hoarding..
>>
>> I think that it is important to be clear about the different
>> definitions and meanings of the term hoarding. The traditional definition
>> of a hoard is a relatively small, discreet, group of valuable material
>> that
>> was collected and hidden with the intention of being recovered in the
>> future. Most hoards were coins or coins mixed with small valuables such
>> as
>> jewelry. Although the hoards that archaeologists find were never
>> recovered
>> by the people who placed them, the original intention was to do that when
>> it was safe to do so.
>>
>> The popular, pop-psychology meaning of the word -a form of collecting
>> that has gone "over the top" as portrayed on TV in shows such as
>> "Hoarders"
>> is a different phenomenon. The kind of hoard that this refers to is
>> usually a deposit of material that has some special meaning to the
>> individual, and that develops over time, is not located in a temporary
>> hiding place, and has its origins in different human behavior.
>> Margie Akin - Riverside
>>
>> Date: Wed, 13 Aug 2014 12:19:21 -0700
>>> From: [log in to unmask]
>>> Subject: Re: Hoarding
>>> To: [log in to unmask]
>>>
>>> What about any digs at a junk yard? Does anyone know if there are any
>>> reports/articles on that?
>>>
>>> Bill White
>>>
>>>> On Aug 13, 2014, at 9:22 AM, "John M. Foster, RPA" > <
>>> [log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> I've seen all kinds of features that might be considered evidence of >
>>> hoarding. You'd be well served if you define your terms. We found >
>>> 'bone
>>> yards' on farms and ranches that contain old equipment that the > owner
>>> may
>>> or may not recycle into new tools or equipment. Is that > hoarding?
>>> I've
>>> seen hoarding in modern contexts defined as a disease > but I'm not so
>>> sure
>>> that in earlier contexts it would be so considered. > Possibly prudent
>>> and
>>> good judgement. It will be interesting to see > what you come up with.
>>>>
>>>> John
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> John M. Foster, RPA
>>>> Greenwood-Associates.com
>>>> 310.454.3091 tel/fax
>>>> 310.717.5048 cell
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> ________________________________
>>>> From: "Rodgers, Ree" <[log in to unmask]>
>>>> To: [log in to unmask]
>>>> Sent: Wednesday, August 13, 2014 9:14 AM
>>>> Subject: Re: Hoarding
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> That would be interesting, I would think hoarding would be a fairly >
>>> recent phenomena
>>>>
>>>> Cheers, Ree
>>>> Archaeologist
>>>> WAPA, Rocky Mountain Region
>>>> 970-461-7214
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>> From: HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of >
>>> Susan Walter
>>>> Sent: Wednesday, August 13, 2014 10:07 AM
>>>> To: [log in to unmask]
>>>> Subject: Hoarding
>>>>
>>>> August 13, 2014
>>>>
>>>> Has anyone ever excavated a known hoarder's site?
>>>> I mean old, one filled in with dirt?
>>>> I've been cleaning out since a friend's death; its very archaeological.
>>>>
>>>> S. Walter
>>>
>> =
>>
>>
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