How to Find Colonial Trash Pits???

[coinman123]

I detect in many colonial areas and am wondering how to find trash pits there from colonial era. I know of many 1890's-1900 trash pits but am wondering if there is a good way to find anything early. I assume there are trash pits there, how else would they throw away garbage? I have heard of people scoring huge there and would like to try. I detected at mainly overgrown areas that are now woods and seeing anything on the ground is hard through the leaves if that helps. Any help would be great.

 

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[CincinnatiKid]

Not a clue.
But, a site I've been hunting has just revealed a second dump site inaccessible during summer. Although, smaller than initially located dump, now that foliage is minimal, it's easily seen. Seems to date earlier too?
Braving the cold can pay off. I can only imagine what you can find in New England.
Good luck!
Peace ✌

 

[Higgy]

I detect in many colonial areas and am wondering how to find trash pits there from colonial era. I know of many 1890's-1900 trash pits but am wondering if there is a good way to find anything early. I assume there are trash pits there, how else would they throw away garbage? I have heard of people scoring huge there and would like to try. I detected at mainly overgrown areas that are now woods and seeing anything on the ground is hard through the leaves if that helps. Any help would be great.

I think that colonial-era trash dumps will be found under the 1890's-1900's trash dumps. Think about it a second.

Look at all of our modern trash today. Billions of tons per day. Now go back 50 years when you were a kid, shooting rats at the town dump, and busting bottles and having a darn good time. There was a lot less trash back then. The towns could handle it in one dump. Now go back another 50 years. Even less trash, right?. The idea of consumers buying something in a container that was disposable was still relatively new then, but marketers and manufacturers already had us in their greedy little hands. Take a look at a post-1900 bottle dump. What do you have in it? Phillips magnesia bottles and rusty cans. Folks usually just found a spot on their property to make a small trash pile, or used the one on the property that has always been there.

Now go back another 100 years on top of that. Trash in the colonial era usually consisted of things that were broken. The idea of sealing food into tin cansto keep food from spoiling was still very new, and perhaps not even heard of in the colonies by then. In 1715, the Napoleonic Wars were coming to an end, and the tin can was invented by some Frenchman for Napoleon anyway. So what did the colonists do to generate trash? well, not much is what I have to say. Things just weren't considered disposable, and they were either reused or repurposed or passed on. Wooden barrels, wooden buckets, copper containers, and clay jars were the norm, and unless they were broken they were reused over and over.

So look at it this way. If you have a house in New England that was built in 1700, then it stands to reason that they probably threw all of their disposable junk in the same dump for 100+ years.

So you got to dig d-e-e-p, my friend!

 

[DonDigger]

Look for depressions in the land on the site where you are searching. From my experience people didn't dump trash on high ground, but in washouts, dry creeks, gulleys, or any other natural depression they could find. And like was stated above, the older the site, the less trash was thrown away. Most everything was reusable, and to valuable to be tossed out.

 

[sckimbershot]

privy probe might help. i hit civil war sites and always had eratic responses with my md in one area--so i took a probe--and pushed through till i felt a crunchy contact. dug down about two feet to a void--put my gloved hand down, felt around and pulled up a small intact 1800's bottle (surrounded by other junk).

i may poke around for more stuff--but for now--i have plenty of less junky areas to focus on.