Ned Heite wrote:
        "Weiskotten and others on this list probably live in artifact contexts
that are quite a bit earlier than our calendar date. The mean date of our
surroundings reflects something, but it isn't the current time.  We need to
consider life cycle when we try to establish a date range for a site. Early
in adult life, we are consumers. Many of our durable goods are acquired
within a short time. At the end of our lives, we do not consume durable
goods. ..."
        Then he makes some hypotheses about how my assemblage could be interpreted.
 
Ned:
        Thanks for pointing out that I own a lot of old junk - actually, since I
brought the subject up a few posts ago, I might as well expand on it.
        Back when I was doing analysis for whatever phase of survey projects (and
when working for various firms except Gibb, of course) it was standard
practice to talk about Mean Date of Manufacture, cite South 1976 (_Method &
Theory in Archaeology_) and then build tables that pinpointed a nice time
range for the sites primary occupation (or if deposits were distinct enough
- occupations).  Turns out that all but one or two folks working in the
office and lab had never heard of South, let alone read it or checked it
periodically, nor were they aware of the plethora of papers that argue,
revise, append, amend, debauch from, barf on, or praise it.  This fit well
with the boiler plate mentality of reports.  The lab had its own sheet of
listing artifacts and the assigned MMD, and these were based on someone's
list who built it from someone else's list who saw that someone in Ohio had
done something similar.  (We really need that Nomenclature of artifacts
that the decorative arts folks live by!)
        When artifacts were brought into the lab they were cataloged, assigned
dates based on these sheets, and the whole shebang was sent to me for
interpretation.  Maybe if I was lucky I got a chance to actually work with
the artifacts for a few hours before the middleman told me to mind my own
business.  I usually ended up with a table of dates and temporal
assignments in which I had nary a shred of confidence.
        On one particular project the several fatal flaws of this practice came to
the surface.  Background research had shown that they site had an early
19th century use as a store or other commercial enterprise, and, after a
period of abandonment or superficial use, was occupied by a series of
tenant farmers between 1855 and 1880.  Since many of the ceramics were
simple whitewares, both plain and decorated, and which in some form were
still manufactured well into the 20th century, such artifacts were given
open ended (1830-1999) MMDs (with a mean date of 1914.5) that threw the
whole mess off.  To mitigate this otherwise worthless information it was
decided (not by me) to truncate (provide a "life cycle" as ned called it)
the MMD to the 1855 to 1880 period defined in the archival search.  This
gave wonderous results!  Now every soil horizon had dates that fell neatly
within the expected range of primary site occupation - success!
(unfortunately the truncation got rid of the early redwares, creamwares,
and pearlwares that were also found.)
        In the midst of all this one sided debate (that is how it is done so do
it) was the realization that if we applied the same to the material goods
in my possession at that time then I would be living in the 1940s.  Or,
conversely if you consider that I was born in 1960 and disregarded
everything that was pre-1960, then I would (surprise!) be living within my
lifetime (Quantum Leap-like!) but I would have a very bare cupboard with a
few books, a computer, TV and VCR.
        Also, this assemblage that surrounds me these days is not necessarily one
that I have steadily been building in my adult years.  In my 20s I had a
really nicely furnished place (MMD would have been about 1900 with all the
great antiques and nice old _coins_) but, when I went off to University I
ended up having to sell almost everything to make sure I had food on the
borrowed table.  I managed to keep my books and some favorite
three-dimensionals which got shipped out to friends and family, but
following school I had to rebuild the household assemblage.  It has been
only a few years in that endeavor and I am still building with much of my
secondary stuff in storage until Jen and I find a bigger place (and that
throws another factor into the equation - combined households!)  With
unemployment being my latest career I have resorted to not accumulating
more stuff.  On top of that, even in my "affluent years" most of my best
stuff has come from garage sales and auctions - rarely hot-off-the-shelf
retail.
        When eventually I am forced to shuffle off this mortal coil, I bet you
that somebody will do something with the crud I have accumulated.  Whether
it is to pass it down to someone else, sell it to the lowest bidder, chuck
it along the roadside (which would send me spinning in my grave), or leave
it rotting in a cellar hole for some future archaeologist, it will be a
miracle if anyone could decipher what my life was like based on that stuff.
 For a clear example there would be not one clue that I enjoy woodworking:
the not very exciting but useful stuff I have built would be passed on to
others, my Roy Underhill books would be rotten away, and I had to sell all
but a few hand tools (I always took pretty good care of them and never
threw any away).
        Each individual builds or disperses a household assemblage based on the
events of that persons life (the myriad of factors of fate and the
innumerable paths that can be followed through life, not to mention that
what happens [often without the indivual's input] after life is another
mushrooming barrel of runaway monkeys).  Too many archeologists take the
stuff that remains and they try to state that this is strictly
representative of how this person lived - we fall into a trap over and over
again if we keep thinking that the process of material accumulation was
static and progressive and that the archaeological record is so precisely
reflective (there is reason that sites without a wealth of such evidence
are blown off, but consider the ramifications of leaving such negative
assemblages out of the literature!).
        This gets back to the role of reuse and recycling and its impact on the
archaeological record - so many people, in 1066, 1492, 1607, or 1929, just
as today, got their every day stuff from peddlers, second hand shops,
auctions, hand-me-down, or in swap with someone else.  There is little in
my assemblage that can be claimed as in the hands of the original owner -
and I can't imagine any but the most costly and strictly sterile modern
households that would provide the counter argument (Miami Vice places for
example).
        It seems to me that exceptions to the rule are the rule.  The thing is we
have to use something in order to assign the temporal spans so necessary to
what we do, and the methods bashed above really do work, but we need to be
aware of the pitfalls in all of them.  I've always said that it isn't
necessarily that you know _what to do_, but more importantly that you be
aware of WHAT NOT TO DO and try to be one step ahead of the factors that
provide the exception.  Long Live Negative Evidence Awareness!
 
        Dan W.