Category Archives: Historical Archaeology Class Blog (Fall ’18)

Death and Society

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Calvary Cemetery is a rather old one in Seattle and possibly has been here since its very inception. As I had imagined, the most common epitaphs and messages were things like Beloved Mother and Beloved Father and here and there a quote from the Bible, after all this cemetery used to be a Catholic exclusive one. Many were former veterans usually from World War II some of I. One individual was what I believe to be some sort of nurse or doctor based on the caduceus symbol on her marker.
The seriation in my data was primarily focused on the type of grave marker used and looking at what kind of markers were most popular in each period of time over 5 year increments. There were particularly many deaths between 1935-1945 in particular which coincided with the end of the Great Depression and American entry into World War II. This conclusion came from the fact there were so many small block markers, which were the vast majority of what I saw at the cemetery. Monument markers bearing multiple family members were at their peak in this moment as well. Based on the economy at the time, I figured that these were the most affordable options at the time based on the small size of the markers and sheer frequency. Monuments would have an economic advantage of being shareable by many members. Some of which I saw had no death date meaning that person was still alive and would be added later. There were relatively few veterans from what I expected but it is possibly they were mainly in veteran cemeteries instead. It should also be noted that most of these vets survived the war. A larger portion occurred the depression and were possibly because of illness and age.

So what can you learn from a graveyard?

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Cemeteries. Typically seen as dark, depressing places continuously shrouded in rain, not really the place you’d want to do a study at. However, that is exactly what we did. Through the examination of the features of headstones, such as epitaphs, shape, size, material etc. cultural norms from various eras can be inferred upon. One aspect of this that intrigued me was the use of kinship terms. Through my initial observations it seemed more often than not terms such as wife or mother were being used on female gravestones, while terms such as father were almost absent. To create a clearer image of this I created a seriation based on the use of kinship terms overtime:The seriation demonstrates a clear disparity between the use of ‘wife’ and the use of ‘husband’.The term wife is most commonly used at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century. During this same time period the term husband is rarely seen. This could be a result of societal norms which placed  greater importance on the marital status of women than it did for men;women who were not married were seen as societal outcasts, while men were seen as bachelors. This would explain why it was thought necessary to define a woman by her husband.

We encounter a similar trend when we look at the use of mother and father. Between 1890 and now mother is almost continuously used on head stones. In contrast, father is not used until the 1930s and even then we do not witness a continued use of the term to the present. This indicates that it was and still is thought that the relationships in a woman’s life, particularly that of a mother and child, are of great importance to their identity, while the identity of men are better represented by their name.

The terms daughter and son were uncommon. I cannot see any discernable trends in the use of the two terms over time. The few headstones that did have daughter and son on them were child graves. From this I am assuming that the only time these kinship terms were used was when a child died before their parent.

Well that’s all for now. If you’re interested in learning more about this particular topic I encourage to pop down to your local graveyard and make note of the kinship terms used over time.

Survey of Calvary Cemetery: Trends in Death and Gravestones Over Time

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Analysis of cemetery gravestones can yield interesting information about ongoing world events and general trends in religious behavior and burial practices. Charting the frequency of burials that our class surveyed reveals two peaks in death (Figure 1). One of the peaks around 1918 corresponds with the Spanish flu, a worldwide epidemic that caused millions of deaths, including many in the US. Another peak in the late 1930s, early 40s is likely associated with World War II; some of the gravestones from this period list the military affiliations of the people buried. Most of the gravestones placed during these peaks were the block style (Figure 2). Due to the large number of burials during these time periods, the cemetery was probably rapidly expanding and thus the number of very large monumental gravestones and plots decreased. The block style gravestone takes up less space than some of the other stone types and more people could be buried in a smaller area. Though our sample size was small, it was still revealing of world events and trends in gravestone styles. I imagine that an even larger survey size would reveal a more refined view.

Figure 1: Number of People Buried Per Point of Time

Figure 2: Changes in Gravestone Shape Over Time

[Insert pun about garbage here]

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Garbage is an ever present, unappealing part of today’s society. It burdens the mind with concerns over pollution and conservation. Just as easily, though, it can be swept out of mind by dropping it in the bin and leaving it for an early morning truck to disappear. In our own adaptation of Bill Rathje and Cullen Murphy’s Garbology project, we charted the deposition of trash, compost, and recycling in our own homes before analyzing the anonymous deposition of a classmate. While odd and sometimes gross, this project spotlights how archaeologists take the discards of the past and use them to describe the people who left them behind.

In the trash, compost, and recycling bins, the data were unsurprisingly in line with daily household activities — cooking meals was reflected in pasta boxes and frozen broccoli bags; cleaning up was seen in discarded paper towels and junk mail, and taking care of the oneself was reflected in a spent deodorant tube and Q-tips. What was surprising, however, was how easy it is to rely on thin evidence and assumptions to support broad conclusions about the person doing the discarding. The national brands of yellow pasta, marinara sauce, and broccoli suggest, because of my personal experience, a person who is new to cooking for themselves and hasn’t branched into more imaginative cooking. The national brands also suggest to me that the person isn’t exploring regional or local grocery stores and farmers’ markets. Maybe a newcomer to the area? Aside from relying on my subjective perspectives, all these interpretations are further made problematic by the short data collection period of one week. Imagine how a new job, school quarter, or travel plans might skew what you throw away and where.

For archaeologists tasked with interpreting the material record of past human life, recognizing the subjectivity we unavoidably bring with us is essential to any analysis. Our trash, ancient or modern, has a lot to say about us, the catch is in how we selectively give voice to these discarded objects.

Not Another Trashy Blog

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This assignment truthfully scared me a little at first, but I ended up thoroughly enjoying it and found it to be really interesting – my own record and the one I analyzed. I do want to note how so often we are told always how we live in such a materialistic and consumerist society, which I don’t disagree with, but I honestly expected more refuse from myself and the sample I analyzed. After the first day of recording, I was definitely very aware of what I was throwing away and wondered how someone else would interpret it.  When I first looked at the sample I was analyzing, I didn’t think I would be able to guess as much about the person as I was able to, but a few items here and there definitely helped get a clearer picture, from papers to other items, although I still would not put 100% into my guess of gender and socioeconomic status. This is the first archaeology class I have taken with a lab, and I before this I don’t think I understood just how valuable and insightful minuscule ‘small things forgotten’ items can be towards interpreting and understanding the way a person lives. I also thought that had it been another week how my trash might have been completely different, and if the sample period had been longer what else could I guess about the person and if I would be more accurate, or would it become too much for a clear picture? We learned that people tend to underreport as well, which makes me wonder if the sample I analyzed or I did that. Garbology, while sounding very skeptical at first, definitely provides a lot of information about a person, their habits, and lifestyle, and is a very useful tool for learning about people in the modern age.

Garbology 101

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Looking at trash is nothing new for archaeologists, the human past is littered with refuse and archaeologists use those leavings to determine a variety of things about past societies. However, it wasn’t until recently that archaeologists began looking at modern garbage for our research. Looking at the detritus of current societies offers a number of insights that we are unable to gather when looking at trash heaps or middens that are as much as a hundred years old, much less thousands. This is because there is so much of it to look at. Partly because humans have started making more waste than ever before and partly because types of waste like plant matter have not yet decomposed beyond the point of recognition. Packaging labels are still legible, not yet faded with time, meaning we don’t have to speculate as to where people are shopping and what they’re buying and eating. Which in our consumer driven society is a huge part of our culture.
For our Historical Archaeology class this past week we were asked to collect and record our own garbage over a seven day period. Stinky, but super interesting! Even just looking at my own garbage was illuminating and I was shocked by how much waste my family generated over the course of a week. Looking at such a small sample as compared to much larger garbology studies like the one at the University of Arizona might not seem worthwhile since there isn’t as much we can glean from this limited amount of trash, but there are still a number of conclusions that can be made. And even if it only has the outcome of making one or two students think twice before they throw something away that doesn’t sound too bad.

My Life as Oscar the Grouch

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I may not be green, or furry, or a monster for that matter, but I did spend the last week living in the garbage. This isn’t everybody’s idea of a good time, but if Oscar can embrace it, so can I.

My Spirit Monster

In brief, my task was to look at a week’s worth of garbage from an anonymous individual and interpret it to try to get a look into this person’s life- what types of information can you learn from what someone has thrown away? Yes, this is legal- even if it hadn’t been voluntary (California v. Greenwood).

To be honest, there wasn’t that much that I felt I could accurately interpret from the trash that wasn’t immediately evident. It was obviously someone who ate meat, as there were chicken and bacon among the objects in the garbage. Yet, as this exercise would have been pointless if no one made any bold assumptions, I pushed myself to use a little imagination- I started small: this person probably has a car… I mean, they shop at multiple different grocery stores and visit different arts and crafts places- this would be a hell of a lot easier if you weren’t dependent on bus schedules. Next, I assume this person has long hair because as a short haired person, I have never had a need to throw away my hair. It conveniently flows down the drain never to be seen again. Growing up in a household with sisters and a mother, there was ALWAYS long hair in the trash- pulled from combs, brushes and the shower drain. The long hair was my first and only real epiphany. I’m sure for others the trash spoke volumes, sang even, but for me the trash mumbled and whispered. Could I assume this person’s gender based on what was in their garbage? Not really… there were no targeted ads that were thrown away, there were no diagnostic artifacts of sex or gender, and if the garbage isn’t going to tell me, I’m not going to assume.

One of the more striking outcomes of this study was the difference between my expectations of what one would throw away versus the reality of the assemblage I was given. My discard habits definitely influenced my ideas of what people throw away. The things I expected to see were the things I throw away on a weekly basis, but the things I saw reminded me that individuality is apparent in the garbage record- everyone throws away things unique to their identity, whether or not it tells who they are.

 

We Are Trash

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I would’ve never thought trash could say so much about a person. This past week, recording all the items that went into my apartment’s garbage made me realize 1) how much trash my roommates and I produce within not even a week, 2) I absolutely hate sifting through garbage, and 3) people like to wait until the garbage gets overfilled because we’re all too lazy (or too busy, if you wanna be nice about it) to walk all the way down to the dumpster in the garage (at least in my case). Also, spending half of my time – just in this past week – out of the apartment made it a bit harder to collect data since some days would go without recording refuse since it wouldn’t have been a control of how much, and what my collective household throws away. Otherwise, this was a very informative assignment.

 

This assignment also included the chance to analyze and interpret someone else’s garbage. They separated their refuse into garbage, recycling, and compost, and shopped at Trader Joe’s, ate lots of organic food, you get the idea. Then we were to infer from that what kind of person they were and honestly all I could say was that

they’re probably ten times healthier than me;

probably use public transportation and/or ride a bike, or own a Prius;

and they probably remember to bring their reusable shopping tote(s) to the grocery too.

From their descriptive data I could only infer these things, but I’m honestly hoping I’m like, 80% correct. It’s like the world is saying we are our own trash. If you ate a lot of meat, we would probably find empty bacon wrappers, meat packages, maybe chicken wing bones or T-bones. We could infer you really like your protein for working out after (who knows?). If you’re in an Asian household, you’ll probably never find expired foods because “IT’S STILL GOOD” according to my Asian mom, and will be left in the fridge until spring cleaning; but you can almost guarantee you’d find some Spam cans, some Seafood City or H-Mart take-home packages, sauce packets with foreign names, noodle wrappers, and some black hair-dye (secret: that’s how Asians stay young).

Es x̣ʷéʔeli

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Over the last week, I have recorded every scrap of garbage that I had produced and analyzed another students’ garbage in the process.  While we sat and read about garbology from Little and Rathje and Murphy, we learned about the ongoing anthropology of modern garbage.  It was somewhat interesting and mortifying to see how much waste we produce, I wonder about today’s consumer culture and why everything we buy nowadays seems to come in copious amounts of packaging.  Even the fruit we buy we feel the need to put much of it in bags, which we throw away.

As a modern Indigenous person, I live in a typical American fashion while keeping foot in traditional Indigenous traditions.  In terms of garbology, I started thinking about the garbology of the Indigenous, i.e. Indigenous garbology (I may or may not have just coined a term).  What would Indigenous garbology entail?  In my case, I produce much of the same type of garbage that the typical American household produces, plus garbage produced from producing cultural objects.  In my case it is processing raw materials such as roots, working with feathers, beadwork, and carving wood and ivory.  It is important to note however that much of this does not make it into the garbage can.  Natural things I tend to dispose of in a respectful and symbolic manner.  If it is natural, I tend to put it back into nature.  Other things however, such as miscellaneous and malformed beads and nylon bead thread tend to go into the garbage.  I would imagine this would differ from one Indigenous population to another, but I wonder what we could learn about how we continue our Indigenous culture in the modern world from looking at our garbage?

This lab was absolute Garbo logy

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Over a week I recorded all of my garbage disposal and interrogated my family on what they threw out in my absence to avoid digging through again. I realized what kind of habits my family and I have in our disposal and also our purchasing habits so when I went to analyze another person’s, I made many connections on what a person could find out just by digging through trash. And when I started making connections to who that classmate could be, I realized how creepy Garbology work can appear to be. The things found in trash can be commonly found in relation to each other such as vegetables and fruit be associated with perhaps a paper or plastic bag from QFC. It takes no genius to come to that conclusion but when you consider the lack of marks or the unreliability of stamps can be, it takes a bit of wet work. But for this lab, it was pretty easy simply because of familiarity to those objects.

Found this old relic in my trash bin! Incredible what you find in there.

The person whose garbage I had is definitely a child of the West Coast or at least internally became one deeply. The fact that the refuse is separated by trash and recycling in such a detailed way shows this person is a Seattleite. It’s reflective of this city’s general concern with environment and probably its eating habits as well. The person was very dissimilar to me but at the same very similar. It just goes to show how much we can learn about each other through archaeology even in very recent times.

And here’s my dog

it’s interesting how many households keep these artifacts whose only function appears to be leaving garbage around the house. Perhaps a culture of cleanup?