My colleagues and I at the Anthropological Studies Center and Foothill
Resources are in the process of writing an “Interpretive Report” for a
project we did near Union Station in downtown Los Angeles a couple years
ago. The volume is intended to go beyond the standard data-recovery type of
report by offering our interpretations of the fieldwork and laboratory
analyses. We would like this to be useful to professionals and interested
lay readers alike, and, to that end, are compiling a collection of short,
focused, and well-illustrated essays on various topics relating to the
research questions we originally posed.
 
One of the topics is called “Cleaning House” and is an attempt to explain
how the pits, privies, and wells we all so love to find got filled with
household refuse in the first place. The kinds of deposits we’ve been
finding seem to be the result of more than just everyday garbage disposal;
they appear to represent something more along the lines of episodic
housecleaning or the result of periodic household transitions.
 
Does anyone have any thoughts on this? We’d love to incorporate the ideas
and observations of our archaeological brethren. Tell us about your hollow
features, what you found in them, and how you interpreted them.
 
Thanks!
 
Mary Praetzellis and Julia Costello