ANTH2 LAB1 Garbology PDF

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ANTH2 Intro to Archaeology lab 1 garbology assignment...

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ANTH 2

LAB 1: Garbology

At a fundamental level, archaeology is the study of other people’s garbage. Typically, the people whose trash we study lived in the past. But we can use the same principles to analyze refuse in our own society. Doing so can help us understand the potentials and challenges of archaeological evidence and may even teach us something about ourselves. What you need to do: 1. Keep a log of everything that is thrown away, recycled, and/or composted during a two-day period in one area of your living space (for example, the kitchen). You can do this continually, or you can choose a specific time of day to make note of the contents of the waste bin. If you use this strategy, please wear gloves if you will be touching the garbage. I can provide you with nitrile gloves – just ask! As you record your garbage, take note of the items in your waste bin using the table on the next page (you can expand it if needed). You may also want to photograph important items to illustrate your lab report. 

For the Description column, briefly describe the item you throw away, so that you can remember it for later reflection. Be more specific than “food wrapper” by writing, for example, “Kind Bar wrapper.”

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For the Material column, note whether the object is plastic, glass, etc.

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For the Biodegradable column, indicate Y for yes or N for no.

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Count the number of the same item and note the number in that column.

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Make a note of the object’s general weight (for example if printed on the item) or size.

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In the Indication of Date column, note any chronological information that one could derive from observing this piece of trash. Imagine that someone 100 years from now finds your item and is trying to figure out when it was made, used, or deposited.

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For the Artifact Class column, use the following possibilities: Food Waste; Food Packaging; Hygiene; Work/School; Recreation/Entertainment; Other

2. Write a lab report that includes the completed table, a short description of your methods (where and for how long did you observe the refuse?), and your answers to the questions regarding the three areas of analysis posed on the following pages. Note you may work in groups of up to four students if you wish. THE LAB REPORT WILL BE DUE BY THE END OF THE DAY ON FRIDAY, JANUARY 14.

Description Disposable procedure mask SmartWater plastic bottle Strawberry leaf Sephora shipping package Puffs plus lotion facial Tissue box Starbucks drinks cups Target plastic bag Plastic straw Panda express takeaway packaging Costco receipt Ume Tea drinks cups Toilet paper Uber Eat package Costco NY Steak package

Material fabric

Biodegradable? Y/N Ｙ

Plastic

Count 2

Weight or Size 6.8”x3.75”

Indication of Artifact Class Date? N/A hygiene

Y

3

33.8 FL OZ

N/A

Food packaging

Food waste

Y

15+

1cm

N/A

Food waste

Paperboard

Y

1

10”x6”x5”

1/11/2022

Recreation/entertainmen t

Cardboard

Y

1

4 ¾”x 9 ½”x 4 ¼”

N/A

Hygiene

plastic

Y

4

16 fl. Oz.

N/A

Food packaging

plastic

Y

1

12”x6”

N/A

Hygiene

plastic

Y

4

8in

N/A

Other

cardboard

Y

5

16oz

N/A

Food packaging

paper

Y

1

9”x3”

Other

Plastic

Y

5

2.5”x3.1”

01/14/2022 13:33 01/13/2022

Food packaging

paper

Y

10+

4.5”x4”

N/A

Hygiene

Paper

Y

2

12”x10”

01/13/2022

Food packaging

Plastic

Y

1

3lb

1/14/2022

Food packaging

H&M clothing bags Green tea bottle

paper

Y

1

18”x7”

N/A

plastic

Y

1

16.9fl. oz.

N/A

Recreation/entertainmen t Food packaging

note paper

paper

Y

5

8.3”x11.7”

N/A

Work/school

Kitchen towel

paper

Y

6

20”x30”

N/A

Hygiene

Part I. Understanding the Assemblage. In archaeology, the term assemblage refers to a group of objects found together in the same context. Many times, our assemblages are made up of materials that came together as they were thrown away at the end of their useful lives. Thus, disposal (also referred to as discard) is one of the key behavioral processes (along with acquisition, manufacture, and use) during which materials enter the archaeological record. Assemblages related to discard are often thought of as being in transposed primary context. What this means is that they are found exactly where the last people to touch those items left them, but they were not left exactly where they were used (which would be use-related primary context). Use-related primary context is usually better for archaeologists because we can infer exactly how people used items – for example, stone tools found in and around the butchered carcasses of wild animals would directly imply an ancient hunting camp. In a transposed primary context, like your household waste, we may have animal bones and stone tools thrown together in a single refuse pit, but it would a weaker inference to say that those tools were necessarily used to butcher those animals. Please answer the following questions. Feel free to use photos to illustrate your points.  What is the most common artifact class in your assemblage? The most common artifact class is the food packaging.  What does a high frequency of that class of material imply about the behavior of people in your living area? People tends to order food delivery to their house due to the pandemic.  Can you infer the function of the room or area based on the refuse generated there? There is a lot of household refuse, such as tissue paper, packaging, receipts, etc. Therefore, I can infer that the refuse generated was likely from a home or room.  How might the issues of behavioral processes and context apply to your domestic refuse assemblage? The most important factors to consider when looking at my domestic refuse are my eating habits. For the past few weeks, because of the surge of COVID-positive cases, we have tended to go out less than before. Therefore, we usually order food delivery to our home. An archaeologist can use the large number of food delivery packages to indicate that people tend to order food to their homes due to the pandemic.  Are there items in your assemblage that may have been used together? How would you know? Costco receipts and the Costco NY steak package can be used together because they come from the same resources. Moreover, Ume Tea drink cups and plastic straws may have been used together too, because you will need to use a straw while drinking a beverage.  How might the total number of people responsible for your assemblage complicate the picture revealed by the materials in your waste bin? (for example a communal kitchen in a residence hall vs a single dorm room) If I live in a single dorm room, my assemblage may not be too complicated. But I live with another roommate who shares one garbage can, so our assemblage can be more complicated than a single dorm room.

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Are there other challenges for interpretation stemming from the nature of your assemblage? I believe the main difficulty in interpreting my assembly is that most of my junk in the last two or three days hasn't been particularly sophisticated. My roommate and I didn't go out much because of the pandemic. Gathering precise knowledge on our way of life may be difficult for the archaeologist.

Part II. Material Culture as Clues to Identity, Economy, and Ideology Archaeologists believe that the things we use – our material culture – can say a lot about who we are, how we relate to other people, and even what we believe. How might these principles apply to your domestic refuse assemblage? Answer the following questions: 

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Which items, if any, might reveal the ethnicity or national heritage of your household? Panda express packaging, Ume Tea drink cups, and green tea bottle, might reveal that it is a Chinese household. Because Chinese are more tend to drink boba tea and eat Chinese food. Which items, if any, may be indicators of socio-economic status? Perhaps the items I purchased, such as Sephora shipping packages and H & M clothing bags, indicate that my socioeconomic status is middle-class. Which items could illuminate global economic connections or supply chains? The shipping package from Sephora and the plastic bags from Costco can reveal worldwide economic relationships and supply systems. The Sephora shipping package, for example, shows that we had a package sent to our home. It suggests that someone dropped this item off at our house from somewhere else, and that it went to and from a number of locations before arriving in our room. Which items, if any, relate to the religious, political, or ideological beliefs of your household? In my room, there aren't necessarily any items in the trash that indicate a particular religious, political, or intellectual belief. Looking at the package for New York steaks, however, excludes the chance that I am Hindu. In short, what might an archaeologist conclude about the people who disposed of these items? The archaeologist may conclude that it may be a middle-class Chinese household’s disposal. Please use photos to illustrate your answers Below is the picture of Ume Tea bottle, and green tea bottle, which can indicate my ethnicity as a Chinese. And the package of Sephora can indicate my socioeconomic status as a middle-class.

Part III: The Archaeological Record In Chapter 2 of the textbook, you read about the differential preservation of archaeological materials over time. Landfills are actually excellent for preservation, so for this section let’s pretend that your bag of domestic refuse somehow ended up scattered on the surface of the ground for the next 100 years. This would be what we call and open-air site, which usually leads to fairly poor preservation of materials due to solar radiation, exposure to water, freeze/thaw cycles, and bioturbation. Examine the following table, which lists the time to decompose for certain materials in an openair context, and answer the questions below. Material Paper Orange peel Apple core Milk carton Wool sock Cigarette butt Synthetic fabric Leather Shoe soles

Time to Decompose 2-4 weeks 2-5 weeks 2 months 3 months 1-5 years 1-5 years 30-40 years 50 years 50-80 years

Aluminum cans Plastic materials Glass containers

100-500 years 500+ years 1 million years

If archaeologists in the year 2120 found your assemblage…  What would be left? SmartWater plastic bottle, Starbucks drinks cups, Target plastic bag, plastic straw, Ume Tea drinks cups, Costco NY Steak package, green tea bottle.  What would have decomposed? Strawberry Leaf, Sephora shipping package, Puffs plus lotion facial disposable procedure mask, Tissue box, Panda Express takeaway packaging, Costco receipt, Toilet paper, an Uber Eats package, H&M clothing bags, note paper, and a kitchen towel  Which of the inferences from Part II would still be viable? The Ume Tea drink cups and green tea bottles may still be useful in providing ethnicity information. The labels on those objects, however, may be damaged.  Which would not? Food waste, shipping packaging, and receipt would not provide viable information in 100 years.  Based on the info you collected, would any of the surviving materials be useful for determining when the assemblage was deposited? The Ume tea drink cups and green tea botte could help researchers figure out when the assemblage was deposited. Because the date of when I ordered this beverage was printed on the Ume tea drink cups. We can also see the expiration date on the green tea bottle, which we can infer. What accounts for the differences in preservation? Does the location of your waste bin (kitchen, office, bathroom, etc.) have any bearing on the relative frequency of organic or inorganic materials in the assemblage? The disparities in preservation of these artefacts are clearly due to the materials used to make them. And the relative frequency of organic and inorganic components in the assemblage was heavily influenced by the location of my rubbish. Despite the fact that my assemblage contained less organic material, there was still some organic food waste. Furthermore, there was an abundance of plastic bottles....