Ron and Fellow HistArchers:
I don't know what to make of a pit dug into a cellar floor and filled with broken wine bottles, along with some faunal remains, a tumbler, a colorless molded glass dessert cup, and other sundries. Overlying strata yielded two large pieces of pearlware. A neighboring and much smaller pit produced a broken wine bottle and a brass keg tap: there is little doubt the occupants cellared wine, but why bottles in a subfloor pit? And why so many (23)?
Jim Gibb
Annapolis, MD  USA

----- Original Message -----
From: Ron May
Sent: Friday, April 30, 2004 11:19 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Underhouse Archaeology

Jim,

Have you considered the pit with wine bottles as a "builder's pit" or
sacrifice ritual done before construction? This ranks right up there with the custom
of hiding shoes in walls or behind fireplace bricks to protect the future
residents. Although bizarre from modern standards, there is anthropological
precedent for this practice in England right up to the 1920s.

Ron May
Legacy 106, Inc.