Perhaps I am the only one who is eager to see Mike's results on this
project?  Unlike Mark Wittkofski and Steven Austin, I can easily
imagine many interesting and significant questions to ask of a war-era
municipal landfill- particularly rationing and wartime changes to
consumerism, recycling, changing community demographics, diet,
health...  All these community behaviors within the wonderful
cultural-ideological framework unique to Utah history.  Face facts
here- if the questions are interesting and important, then they can be
addressed to data from any chronological point in the past (whether
your garbage dump is 60 or 260 years old).  Rathjie's work explores
more recent periods than this, and nobody here would dispute the
significance and relevance of his studies (which were funded through
taxes in the form of grants).  Let us avoid the colonial-myopic
dislike toward the near past, and when the full report is published we
can give the project the benefit of peer-review.  Until I see the
report, I put some faith in the Sagebrush staff and the Utah SHPO
office.

I look forward to seeing the report on this study, Mike.  You might
contact Dr. Rathjie directly, since I don't think he reads this list.
He probably could point you to a large quantity of literature on civic
sanitation and engineering history that is normally below our
archaeological academic radar.  Also, drop a line to Marcy Rockman
<[log in to unmask]> because she is very interested in this
subject (although she is in the field in Wyoming now).  Nancy
Seasholes did a dissertation at Boston University on patterns of
landfilling and earthmoving in urban Boston that might be of some
interest.  Since I am in the field and without my tiny personal
library, so that is the limit of my useful contributions!  I did a
quick glance through Cotter, Roberts and Parrington (1992) and there
are many references to landfills and sanitation, but none seemed
particularly relevant to this project.

Cheers to all,
Tim
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Timothy Scarlett
University of Nevada, Reno
Department of Anthropology / 096
Reno, NV 89557-0096

355 West 500 North
Salt Lake City, UT 84103
[log in to unmask], [log in to unmask]
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"You should be so lucky in your brainy, bloodless life as to deserve
to lift just one of D. H. Lawrence's urine samples to your arid
psychobiographic theory-tainted lips."
-- Tony Hoagland, Lawrence, 1997
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