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Pull-Top Can Tabs, At 50, Reach Historic Archaeological Status

Posted by timothy on from the remember-making-giant-chains-of-these dept.

New submitter kuhnto writes A simple relic of 20th century life has taken on new meaning for archaeologists: The ring-tab beer can — first introduced 50 years ago — is now considered an historic-era artifact, a designation that bestows new significance on the old aluminum cans and their distinctive tabs that are still found across the country.

20 of 120 comments (clear)

  1. Environmentalism, much? by saloomy · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Seems that there are a more ubiquitous items we could designate? Why a form of pollution?

    1. Re:Environmentalism, much? by gl4ss · · Score: 4, Informative

      because they're plentiful and you can age camping grounds etc with them.

      --
      world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
    2. Re:Environmentalism, much? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Pollution is massively valuable to archaeologists, that's where they learn a lot about the society. Millenium old rubbish heaps, midden heaps, toilets etc. All a society without writing leaves behind is ruins and pollution.

    3. Re:Environmentalism, much? by garyisabusyguy · · Score: 4, Interesting

      In the late 80's I was surveying an area that we used to party at in high school
      It had been fenced off for over a decade and it was interesting walking up on old fire pits that had been left to the desert
      Among the discarded clothing and garbage there was an occasional steel can that had been laying undisturbed where it had been thrown years earlier
      I grabbed one for myself, an old Schlitz steel can that was rusted to shit on one side and all spankin brand new on the other
      Yay! Archaeology!

      --
      Wherever You Go, There You Are
    4. Re:Environmentalism, much? by geekmux · · Score: 2

      because they're plentiful and you can age camping grounds etc with them.

      You mean the old copy of Hustler laying there wasn't good enough to date the "ancient" site?

      Give me a break, it's not hard to date American campgrounds. The whole damn country is less than 250 years old. You guys act like we're carbon dating shit here.

  2. America by ledow · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Only in America could something only 50 years old be considered an "historic" artefact, archaeologically.

    That's the 1960's, people. Elsewhere, it's not even considered antique unless it's from 1915 or before. And, to be honest, there's an awful lot of stuff that's "antique" that's worthless. My house would basically qualify as antique and it just a normal suburban semi.

    This is what happens when you have only 500 years of recorded history and ignore anything that happened before then.

    I watched Time Team once, where they do an archaeological dig live on TV, The American episode was so dull because they basically couldn't touch anything. All the "history" was the top inch of soil. Over here in the UK, if it doesn't involve a six-foot-deep trench, you're not even getting past the modern rubbish into the proper archaeology.

    Ring-pulls aren't historical. They may be old, they may even be collectable, they may be something worth remembering for later years, but they're not historical. There's a bakelite museum I know of - fabulous place. Some of the stuff in there is antique, or damn close to the definition. But it's still just plastic. Nice to visit with the kids to show them how things used to be but hardly a point in history worth noting beyond casual interest.

    On the flip-side, I know a guy in Italy who goes through the Alps with a metal detector and still runs across first-world-war bodies, still with all their equipment intact. He has his own museum (and is properly licensed to do that, I'd like to point out). Even that is stuff nearly twice as old as this and of vital historical importance.

    Ring-pulls are still in my memory from being a kid 20 years ago. They aren't historical. Give it 50 years and maybe. But if they are "historical artefacts", then things like cassettes have been for years too.

    1. Re:America by garyisabusyguy · · Score: 4, Interesting

      My mother's grandfather had founded a town along the border in the late 1800's
      The place has been largely abandoned since the Great Depression and we would take a rare trip down 50 miles of washboard road to visit the ruins when I was a kid
      There were a couple of people that had set up trailers and ran their own museums.
      Lots of stuff like the jar of whiskey with a rattle snake in it that an old Chinese man that lived there had used for medicine and broken pieces of my mom's family china that they had dug out of the trash pits
      Since then some of the town descendants have set up a web site and hold a reunion every now and then
      I'm pretty sure the guy with the museum is long dead, I doubt that he had any legal right to anything that he had scrounged
      That's how things used to roll in the desert

      --
      Wherever You Go, There You Are
    2. Re:America by oobayly · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The difference between Europe and America:
      * In America 100 years is considered a long time
      * In Europe 100 miles is considered a long distance

      Certainly true for me - I grew up on an Island where we have monuments going back 5,100 years, but is only 174 by 302 miles in size.

    3. Re:America by ledow · · Score: 2

      UK is in Europe.

      Miles is just fine. We did let you borrow them, after all.

      However, 100 miles isn't a lot at all. The only difference is that you can go through four countries (without noticing) if you do that in certain places in Europe.

      Hell, it's 200 miles to get half-way across my country in it's narrowest dimension. We can do 450 miles for a long-weekend in Cornwall.

      Ironically, France is less distance from London than a tourist-y, beach-y destination like Cornwall.

    4. Re:America by Arnold+Reinhold · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I think you are missing the point. When the pullout tabs were phased out in favor of tabs that stay with the can, I remember thinking that a thousand years from now discarded pullout tabs will be a valuable archeological resource. They are distinctive, ubiquitous, and indestructible, and because they were only used during a short time, they would conclusively date any architectural layer they were found in. Maybe modern circuit boards with their date coded components will serve a similar purpose. I wonder what it would take to get current manufacturers to emboss a year code in can tops or in IC dies? Make trash serve history.

    5. Re:America by ledow · · Score: 2

      Sorry, but you're wrong.

      "The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom or Britain, is a sovereign state in Europe."

      We are in the continent of Europe (as is Greenland). We are in the EU. We are not on the European mainland but neither is Iceland or Ireland, also both considered part of Europe (one even uses the Euro), and a few other places.

      We are in the EU (for which you have to be, well, on the continent of Europe!). We were in the EC / EEC before that.

      We're not AUTOMATICALLY part of various European entities, and enjoy certain exceptions, but we are quite clearly on the European continent, in European organisations, and part of Europe even if we don't consider ourselves European. It would like the US not considering itself part of North America.

      As a Brit, I'll tell you that we joke and talk about Europe like a foreign place, but we're part of it. In the same way that someone in Singapore might tell you they're going around Asia for their holidays.

      We don't, however, use the Euro (neither does Iceland and a few other European countries). Mainly because the pound has proven to be much stronger, but given that the UK's biggest strength is in finance, that's not surprising.

    6. Re:America by McGruber · · Score: 2

      Over here in the UK, if it doesn't involve a six-foot-deep trench, you're not even getting past the modern rubbish into the proper archaeology.

      In America, we don't brag about living atop six feet of trash...

    7. Re:America by Chelloveck · · Score: 2

      Only in America could something only 50 years old be considered an "historic" artefact, archaeologically.

      Crap, by that standard my wife can be considered a historic artifact.

      Um, don't tell her I said that, okay?

      --
      Chelloveck
      I give up on debugging. From now on, SIGSEGV is a feature.
    8. Re:America by njnnja · · Score: 2

      Oh come on. This post is so clearly wrong and makes me so upset that I just have to reply to it. I could show you a logical proof that refutes it, and based upon my vast experience I know that it surely isn't true. I await your reply so that I may provide a more detailed, point by point explanation that will convince you that my position is the correct one.

    9. Re:America by wired_parrot · · Score: 2

      It's not about the can tabs per se. The can tabs have changed often enough in design that the can tab design can be used to date sites from recent history. Their historical artifact status also makes them a useful proxy to protect sites like campgrounds or festival sites that otherwise have little in the way of artifacts. Both of these properties make them useful in dealing with recent historical sites from the last 50 years in both North America and Europe.

    10. Re:America by Curunir_wolf · · Score: 2

      The difference between Europe and America: * In America 100 years is considered a long time

      I hear this shit all the time from Europeans. Oh your country is only 200 years old. Fucking racist, we had people here 30,000 years ago, just because they're a different colour doesn't mean it's less relevant.

      And ultimately we're all 2000th generation African, so we all share a common history. It's not like humans in this part of the world just popped out of thin air 200 years ago. Your 5000 year old relics are equally my 5000 year old relics, since their connection to either you or I is so equally distant.

      What kind of legacy did the native americans leave 2000-3000 years ago to civilisation ? The Romans built roads, acquaducts, conquered the known world, invented Roman Law (that underpins most non common law systems even today). The Chinese had similar accomplishments. The Greeks invented Democracy (although Greek democracy was different from modern day democracies), managed to conquer territories up to India , had great philosophers etc... American history starts in the 16 th fucking century with European explorers. Your nation comes into existence in the late 18th century. So yeah you're a young nation.

      Apparently you've never heard of tribes such as the Creeks, Alabamas, Natchez, Chitimachas and Choctaws. They left ruins of their civilizations, many older than the Romans, all over the American southeast. All the Southwest states contain countless ancient remains and Native American sites. In the Texas panhandle you can visit the Alibates Flint Quarries National Monument, which contains some ancient flint excavation pits thought to have been used for up to 12,000 years.

      --
      "Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
      --- Jerry Garcia
  3. I find lots of these "historic artifacts" by VMaN · · Score: 4, Funny

    As a metal detector user my historic artifact to junk ratio is going to get quite the boost...

  4. European vs American History by sjbe · · Score: 4, Informative

    Give me a break, it's not hard to date American campgrounds. The whole damn country is less than 250 years old. You guys act like we're carbon dating shit here.

    We ARE carbon dating things on this side of the pond. American history goes back WAY before Columbus wandered across the Atlantic.

    The United States as a nation-state may not go back quite as far as some European countries but only a racist idiot would think that history is just the documented history of white people of European heritage. People have been in the Americas for 20,000+ years. And the United Kingdom as we know it today is barely older than the USA so don't get so high and might about how deep European history is.

    1. Re:European vs American History by EmeraldBot · · Score: 4, Informative

      Give me a break, it's not hard to date American campgrounds. The whole damn country is less than 250 years old. You guys act like we're carbon dating shit here.

      We ARE carbon dating things on this side of the pond. American history goes back WAY before Columbus wandered across the Atlantic.

      The United States as a nation-state may not go back quite as far as some European countries but only a racist idiot would think that history is just the documented history of white people of European heritage. People have been in the Americas for 20,000+ years. And the United Kingdom as we know it today is barely older than the USA so don't get so high and might about how deep European history is.

      But this article specifically mentions beer tabs, which just turned 50 years old, and have nothing to do with the Native Americans. Unless I'm missing something here...

      --
      "Set a man a fire, he'll be warm for the rest of the night. Set a man afire, he'll be warm for the rest of his life."
  5. Age of the USA trolls from Europe by sjbe · · Score: 2

    But this article specifically mentions beer tabs, which just turned 50 years old, and have nothing to do with the Native Americans. Unless I'm missing something here...

    You're missing the fact that someone used the fact that pull tabs aren't actually terribly old to get in an irrelevant troll about how the USA isn't that old itself compared with Europe, conveniently forgetting that the history of the Americas goes way back before Europeans got involved.