11.4: Activity 3 - Garbology of Lancaster, California

Darcy L. Wiewall, Antelope Valley College

The vast majority of archaeological materials are, literally, garbage. Discarded stone tools, remnants of meals, a broken ceramic vessel, rotting remains of a seasonally occupied structure, and so on are artifacts in the same sense that a discarded Coke can is a modern artifact. Prehistoric “middens” are simply large collections of refuse that contained food scraps, domestic trash, and sometimes even dead bodies. In antiquity, many cities were literally built atop heaping piles of refuse covered with soil as a means of constructively using trash, and, in the recent past, the shapes of coastal American cities, including Boston, New York, and San Francisco, were transformed and extended by dumping garbage into coastal bays to create filled land.

Archaeological analysis is the interpretation of all that garbage. So, you may wonder, what if archaeologists dug up the remains of our time? What would they think of early twenty-first-century types?

In this exercise, you will interpret modern “archaeological” data—somebody’s trash—presented along with some context for the archaeological excavation following the instructions.

You will interpret the trash evidence in the provided data to answer the following questions.

Be sure to clearly specify the archaeological artifacts you use to support each of your interpretations. Also, consider other possible interpretations even if you think they are less likely than yours.

1. In or after what year was this assemblage deposited? How do you surmise the date?
2. During what time of year was the assemblage deposited? What material suggests that to you? Is there evidence of seasonal activities that would not have occurred during other parts of the year? What material suggests this?
3. How many people likely lived in the residence? What items suggest that? Be specific.
4. What ages and genders appear to be represented in this household? What indicates that to you? Is it possible to interpret the gender of the inhabitants differently than you did?
5. Can you identify the ethnicity of the people in the household? What sorts of material appear to reveal their ethnic background? Why?
6. How would you characterize the household’s income based on the sample? What sorts of material point to their economic standing and in what way?
7. What kinds of household activities appear to be represented?
8. Most of the data is related to food consumption. How would you characterize their diet? For instance, what range of foods do they appear to have eaten? How healthy was their diet? Does their diet appear to have been expensive, cheap, trendy? What does their diet suggest about their lifestyle?

About the Lancaster Excavation

During an archaeological survey of the now-abandoned west coast region of North America, you identified a rare twentieth-century domestic site known during the period as an “apartment complex.” At the site, you uncovered two undisturbed receptacles of material culture. The receptacles are typical of the period—high-density plasticine-based potpourri-scented 13-gallon “kitchen bags.” Fortunately, these receptacles preserved their contents quite well. All wrappers and glass and plastic containers were preserved. Specialists know that this style of receptacle dates to the 1990s, during the late-Hedonistic period. Archaeologists who specialize in this period know that such receptacles were usually used to construct heaping middens that formed rich ecozones predominated by avifauna and rodents. The two bags remained in the space in which the trash was originally collected so you can attribute the assemblage to a particular household. The bags were recovered from a single stratum in the food preparation zone, which this culture referred to as a “kitchen” (before the advent of food replicators). Consequently, you can infer that a single household was almost certainly responsible for the deposit, but you have no other information on the inhabitants and are compelled to rely on your expertise in analyses of this society.

Archaeological Data

Each object recovered from the assemblage is listed by type of good (e.g., milk), brand or manufacturer when possible (e.g., Pillsbury), container type (e.g., paper, plastic), and remains of any unconsumed product (e.g., half-filled bottle of pickles). The material is listed here in no particular order. Some additional explanation is listed in brackets [like this] for some of the goods.

• 2 egg shells
• 5 Huggies Supreme brand diapers, weight class 26-34 pounds, used
• 4 plastic wrappers, Old El Paso brand green chili burritos
• 1 8-ounce plastic bottle, Food-4-Less brand dish detergent [Food-4-Less was a local grocery supermarket]
• 1 half-gallon container Food-4-Less brand chocolate ice cream
• 2 coffee filters each containing 4 ounces ground Caffe Del Sol coffee (saturated during brewing) with empty coffee bag from Online Coffee Company
• 1 7-ounce box Annie’s Shells and White Cheddar Macaroni and Cheese
• 1 32-ounce plastic bottle Gatorade brand sport drink
• 1 half-gallon plastic container Stonyfield Farms Organic Whole Milk purchased from Trader Joe’s
• 3 12-ounce bottles Sam Adams Winter Ale
• 1 empty 3-foot-square unevenly ripped fragment of paper with pictures of small-statured individuals in cold weather clothing cavorting in a winter landscape
• 3 12-ounce bottles Guinness Stout
• 4 5.5-ounce cans Precise Feline Senior Formula
• 1 cellophane wrapper for 6 ounces Gouda cheese from Trader Joe’s, containing roughly 3 ounces remaining with thick mold growth on surface
• 1 cellophane wrapper for large Trader Joe’s focaccia [an Italian-style bread]
• 1 paper bag from McDonalds containing two paper boxes for “Big Mac” type hamburgers (each containing roughly one-quarter of an uneaten hamburger), two paper bags for French fries, 17 uneaten French fries, five unopened salt packets, six unused napkins, three packets unopened catsup, one packet opened catsup, one Happy Meal box shredded with unintelligible pen markings
• 1 store receipt for “Summer in San Francisco” Barbie from Target (cost $69.98, charged to American Express)
• 2 automatic teller machine banking transaction receipts dated 11/06/00 and 11/20/00, each for withdrawal of $10.00 (account balance $898.33 on 11/06/00 and $523.45 on 11/20/00)
• 1 paper magazine PC Gamer
• 1 32-ounce jar Pace brand hot salsa, several ounces remaining with mold growth affixed to vessel interior rim
• 38 sections unidentified-brand paper towels saturated with alcohol-based lemon-scented cleaner; seven covered with egg stains
• 1 paper booklet “Showcase of Antelope Valley Homes” containing illustrations of structures throughout the region
• 6 3-ounce cans Petguard Organic Chicken and Vegetable Entree
• 1 Road Runner Sports catalog
• 1 unopened paper envelope from Citibank with certified mail receipt affixed
• 1 opened paper envelope from F.C. Tucker Realty
• 1 opened paper envelope from National Geographic Society1 opened paper envelope from American Consumer Credit Counseling
• 1 22-ounce bottle Rogue Shakespeare Stout
• 1 paper tag from Levi Strauss brand women’s jeans, size 14 relaxed fit style
• 1 Performance Bike catalog
• 1 package Krusteaz Honey Wheat Berry bread machine mix
• 1 Cambria Bicycle Outfitters catalog
• 1 7-ounce box Panda Licorice chews
• 1 Brookstone store catalog
• 1 empty 12-ounce box Good-N-Plenty [candy]
• 1 package from 12-inch Tombstone Bacon Cheeseburger pizza
• 1 10-ounce container Barbasol Ultra Premium shaving cream, empty, rusted base
• 1 opened paper envelope from American Express
• 1 unopened paper envelope from Maxim
• 1 paper magazine, Entertainment Weekly, cover detached, dated November 28, 2000
• 1 1-pound container Pacific Chai Green Tea Latte purchased from Sprouts
• 12 opened paper envelopes (all empty and from separate addresses); one opened containing paper card with lithograph of hoofed animals in flight and indecipherable ink-inscribed interior message
• 1 copy November 23, 2000 National Enquirer
• 1 unopened paper envelope from Sierra Club
• 4 Power Bar wrappers
• 1 paper box from dozen Krispy-Kreme original glazed doughnuts
• 1 empty prescription bottle from CVS for Colesevelam (brand name Welchol)
• 7 fragments of orange peel that can be reconstructed into a single orange
• 5 8.4-ounce cans Red Bull Energy Drink
• 1 ink pen, one end extensively modified by human tooth marks
• 1 box Kraft Easy-Mac
• 1 4.4-ounce box Tofu Burger Fantastic Foods
• 1 64-ounce plastic bottle Pepsi-Cola
• 1 empty 5-pound bag basmati rice with price tag from O’Malia’s
• 1 empty plastic bag from Wal-mart
• 1 paper cash register receipt from Hollywood Video for $6.00 movie rental of two selections, “Eraserhead” and “The Muppet Christmas Carol” due December 3, 2000

Inspired by the archaeology and material culture website www.iupui.edu/~anthpm/a103trashex.html.