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Sun, 3 Sep 1995 12:41:57 -0700 |
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Subject: More Zymurgy-Mail from Dale May
Dale (and anyone else interested in pursuing discussions of alcoholic
beverage discard patterns)- I think you bring up some interesting
issues about material evidence and ethnicity in alcoholic consumption.
I was recently on a circa 1960 presumably sheep camp site in an area
known historically to be frequented by Basque Sheepherders. Besides
the brush sheep pens, and 55 Gallon drums (presumably for water) there
was an abundance of clear glass one gallon jugs (presumably for wine).
More recent sheep camps seem to have beer cans and bottles associated
(and many sheepherders in the region are now South American (Peru,
Ecuador and Chile) nationals. Mining prospector camps of the last 25
years seem to have whisky and beer bottles. This is currently only
anecdotal data but if not bigoted stereotyping may say something about
occupational and work-related ethnicity and may also tie to the nature
of the tasks being performed, their duration and of course the
economy.
A second civilian site I am working on documenting is a
"road house bar" almost on the Utah State line but still in Nevada.
The Road house was in use from the 30's through the 60's. We found a
slew of barrel hoops located up a side canyon where there is a small
spring. An informant, the last propietor of the bar, tells me that 500
cases of "Bull Dog Malt Liquor" were manufactured and sent "east" to an
unidentified community in Utah, probably in the 30's. I am very
curious how the "malt liquor" was bottled, packaged and transported. I
am also very curious about the history of the Becker Brewery in Ogden
Utah, which was apparently a very successful manufacturer and
distributor there for close to 100 years. My hypothesis is that
permanent civilian residential sites in this region might show
generally low evidence of alcohol containers of any kind, but
commercial sites might show a relatively high presence of alcoholic
beverage containers. A corollary might be that beverage containers on
special use and short term "camp" sites may be an excellent indicator
of occupation and ethnicity. We may indeed be defined as much on the
basis of what we drink than on what we eat. Not startling, I suppose.
I hope there are some others that would like to continue this
discussion.
Mark Henderson
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