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Pull-Top Can Tabs, At 50, Reach Historic Archaeological Status
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.
because they're plentiful and you can age camping grounds etc with them.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
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.
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.
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
As a metal detector user my historic artifact to junk ratio is going to get quite the boost...
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.