These could be "witch bottles"  See article by Marshall Becker,  "An
Eighteenth Century Witch Bottle in Delaware County, Pennsylvania.
Pennsylvania Archaeologist 48 (1-2):1-12 (1978)
________________________________
Bernard K. Means
Research Archaeologist - Arizona State University
Newsletter Editor - Archeological Society of Maryland
 
On Mon, 12 Oct 1998 07:33:11 -1000 Susan Lebo
<[log in to unmask]> writes:
>Hi!
>
>I am working on a site, which was excavated by someone else. This site
>was
>interpreted by them as a "bottle cache" on the basis of bottle
>orientation.
>They found that many of the bottles visible on the surface appeared to
>be
>bottom up, suggesting that the bottles were "cached" rather than
>simply
>discarded. Other surface bottles were found in a variety of
>orientations and
>most of the buried examples were also found in various orientations.
>Whereas
>much of what was recorded on the surface were whole bottles, numerous
>broken
>bottle sherds as well as sherds from ceramic vessels were found on the
>surface or buried.
>
>I have been assigned the task of writing up the interpretation of this
>site
>and feel uncomfortable discussing it as a "bottle cache." First, it is
>not
>limited to bottle discard. Second, while some of the bottles may be
>bottom
>up, this is not a consistent attribute nor does this lend me to
>believe the
>bottles were "intensionally placed." This feature is on a ridge slope
>and
>several nearby slopes have domestic dumps containing primarily
>bottles, but
>some ceramics, metal, etc. I would interpret it as a dump.
>
>Can anyone recommend any references where someone has clearly defined
>a
>"cache" vs. a "dump?"
>
>Thank you in advance. susan
>
 
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