Thoughts about hill digging

[David Osborn]

I've been attacking the top of an old ravine in the oldest part of Omaha. In the same area I've found a flat area thats giving up pre-1900 bottles, but not packed in a tight bunch like in the ravine. The ravine hole i've dug (about two foot wide) is now three feet deep and is densely packed with food and liquor bottles and cans, nothing older than the 1920s (my guess) Every time I scrape the bottom it goes deeper with no sign of letting up.
Its now so deep I'd have to hang in it with my arse in the air and thats no fun. I have inner ear problems and getting dizzy from a lot of up and down is no good for me. Someone on this site has mentioned (twice) that the older stuff is at the top of the hills but that also would seem to be where EVERYTHING ELSE would be so I'm not sure what to do next.
I tried a test dig at the very bottom of the hill. I see a sideways view of any trash hill as a long right triangle with the sharpest point being at the bottom. That end of the triangle would be the shortest to dig all the way thru and maybe find the old bottles with less effort.
All i turned up in the test dig was a ketchup, a Clorox and a Hi-Lex. So still do not know what to try. Ideas ??? Maybe the older 'underspill' below all this new stuff petered out before I got to the bottom tip of this triangle. This ravine is at a turn in the road and attracts lots of dumping. I just 'know' people 100 years ago would have the same inclinations as they would now !!!

 

[Matt in NH]

David,

If people dumped down a ravine over a hundred years ago....a good 90% of the items dump slid down the ravine and ended up at the bottom. I think what has happened is that so much was dumped there that you need to dig down to the oldest use layer. But I strongly believe that gravity carried a lot of the goodies to the bottom [] Make sure you dig thoroughly around the bases of older trees on the way down to the bottom of the hill...a lot of items collected at the base of the older trees on the way down the hill...just a basic tip that a lot of people overlook []

Matty

 

[Bluebelle]

My experience kind of agrees with what Matt said - One of my good spots outside Pittsburgh was a steep hill behind an old estate, and I found stuff hung up among the tree roots at various places on the hillside. Also, it seemed to me that the larger, rounder stuff tended to roll the farthest down the hill, helped by gravity, rain, frost, erosion, and some of the smaller stuff was nearer the top. Hillside foraging can be tricky - I felt like the proverbial "side hill cow."

 

[leebran20]

Hey gang: I'm one of the guys that said that a lot of goodies would be near the top -- but I was referring to hillside or slope digging, which can be very different from a steep ravine. At the particular spot I was referencing, it was a smaller (maybe 30 or so yards in length from top to bottom) and not very steep slope behind a turn-of-the-century house, which was used as the house dump since it was built, through the '70s. What happened was when they first started dumping -- bimal era stuff -- they simply walked to this spot and dropped. Some stuff rolled down a little bit, but since it wasn't really steep, the older stuff built up at the top and then as the years went by and they continued to dump on top of this stuff, the newer stuff slid off the older mounds and further down. There were some exceptions at this spot, but basically the hutches were highest, then bimal crowns, then machines and milks and the like.

With that spot you're talking about I'm sure there're more ways than one to still get your way to goodies. I'm thinking maybe go about midway down -- since there's less chance of stuff below being whole lower if it's truly a steep descent -- get to a relatively safe spot and dig straight ahead until you get to original ground. In other words, don't worry about necessarily going deeper, but forge straight ahead -- removing what's on top first as necessary -- until you push all the way forward to original ground. My thinking is that midway down the hill this would be less work than up top, it will give still give you a good idea of earliest date of some of the bottles to be found there, and then you can always -- if you have more time and will later -- return on a diff. day to the top portion and do the exact same thing.

Just ideas. Take care.