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To the classic historian and professional archaeologist, the “bottle
digger” hobbyist or collector may be looked down upon as a “pothunter”.
While it is true that bottles are part of our archaeological
history, it seems that these people do not realize that without the
myriads of collectors out there salvaging these highly collectible items
from anywhere they can find them such as old outhouses, early farm dumps,
old city dumps, etc., many of these no longer used items would never have
been preserved. Funds are not available to dig a dump and salvage all the
material that is discovered under proper archaeological methods and
techniques and it never will be. Also, there are many thousands of items
found and these people will never have the facilities to store, catalogue
and research these myriads of bottles and other items of historical value.
Some people in the archaeological field say that private citizens should
not be allowed to dig old sites or buy and sell bottles. Would they rather
see all these bottles dug up from construction sites reburied in landfill
sites that will never again see the light of day? I say “face the facts
people, unless you can do it properly, store, process the material and
analyze it, then don’t criticize those that are making some attempt to
save and preserve it now”. A site that can be excavated under controlled
archaeological conditions is one thing and should never be interfered with
by bottle collectors, but these are very few and far between. There is
also the constant battle between historians and archaeologists on one hand
and property owners and construction companies on the other hand. Bottle
collectors are often able to save some of the material before the
construction crews dump it back into landfills that will never again be
exposed.
Many thanks to the author Dr.
R. Dean Axelson for permission to publish this article. |
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