An interesting article written by an archeologist about the historical value of digging privys

[cannibalfromhannibal]

Haven't read the article (yet) but can guess by the arkies attitude. Haven't met one yet worth spit, and THEY are the crooks if you ask me. Educated beyond their intelligence, they believe only they are qualified to be digging anything. Some years ago in my central coast California town, two female militant arkies came from the bay area to dig the old Chinatown area before a multi-story parking structure was to be built. They immediately fenced off the area, lit up the parameter with prison style lights and had a night watchman on duty. (Still, a Ninja style digger made it past it all with bottles and stories to tell, I heard.) The arkies were paid a reported 250k to excavate, catalogue, and display the finds in a public corner of the parking structure, with pictures of the dig and an extra "feature" exposed for viewing behind bulletproof glass. They farted around with their brushes and teaspoons so long that time ran out. They tried to bully the construction company and the city council for more time, to no avail. So they dropped the spoons, grabbed their shovels and began "looting" the site and bagged up everything, hauled it out to the edge of town to a storage area where supposedly every few years someone comes from the bay area to open a few bags and cull through them. For the display, there were a few nice local bottles, one glaringly misidentified that were on display with the photos and the "feature", a fairly obvious privy left un-dug. All other bottles and artifacts supposedly wound up in private collections in the bay area with nothing left for the locals or even any requests for locals to help in the time crunch. Greedy bastards. After a couple years, even the display bottles mysteriously disappeared by someone with a key as there was no vandalism evidenced. And during this time a friend of mine and myself were harassed by the same arkies on the opposite side of town where there was a demolition in progress and we had permission. They came in with their bully style and with cameras in hand began taking photos of us "looting", their favorite term. When we just smiled and posed and waived the one finger waive, they finally left. When I began in this hobby 50 years ago, it used to be a family affair. Friends would meet at the old city dumps and camp out and dig for a weekend and travel to the next county to dig and so on. Part of why I moved to the mid-west is because the arkies have pretty well made it a criminal offense or a legally dangerous hobby at the least in the western 11 states. They were, have been, and remain a constant threat to our hobby and have no regard for anyone's rights but their own imagined, self appointed masters of the dig. Case in point, just read the book about the steamship Arabia and their complete lack of constructive help for the finders of the cargo and their advise to "leave it where it is because you aren't qualified to excavate it." They were qualified to find it where they (arkies) couldn't, but that didn't stop their bully tactics. But ask me how I REALLY feel.........haha! Jack

 

[2find4me]

I used to dream about being an archaeologist, digging up fossils and artifacts of civilizations from long ago... but I never thought of them starting to dig up stuff not even a century old and now some even "looting" sites. What a shame, archaeologists are starting to earn a bad reputation. I miss the old days of digging. []

 

[hemihampton]

I learned from digging in our local town dump [1912-1930's or so] That there was a great amount of alcohol drunk [by the many many whiskey and beer bottles] There was a great amount of drugs taken [so very many prescription bottles!]..Lot of food bottles..not a lot of ink bottles [people were not very literate I guess or they were so drunk and doped up they were not able to write] So my conclusion is that during those years a lot of this town was drunk..doped up..had lots of food..but were not very literate..DANG THIS TOWN Has not changed much at all over the years!![8D] JAMIE

During the 20's was Prohibition so there was limit to Alcohol Consumption. Also alot of southern states had dry counties where alcohol was not served. Of course you had speakeasies & bottleggers. LEON.