One of the most commonly assumed facts about archaeologists (aside from our ability to have adventures, look good in a fedora and be surprisingly skilful with a whip), is that we can look at an object and know how old it is. While this (much like the fedora and whip thing) is not true of all archaeologists, the ability to date artefacts is an integral part of the archaeological process. It is by no means the only part, but it is an important feature of our work and one that can, on occasion, be a little bit frustrating.

Today’s post is the first of three looking at how we date artefacts and assemblages; what this means for the broader archaeological interpretation of sites and people in the past; and some of the difficulties we encounter along the way. This week focuses on some of the issues involved in using evidence of manufacturing methods to date artefacts – specifically, glass bottles – and how those dates relate to the use and eventual discard of an object.

The glassmaking methods used in England in 1858. Early glass vessels were ‘freeblown’ or blown by skilled glassmakers without the aid of a mould and are easy to identify, since they’re often asymmetrical with various degrees of imperfections in the glass. Alternatively, bottles blown using a mould can be identified by the seams left on the glass where the mould closed/opened (see below) and by the obviously hand finished tops. There’s an excellent video of the mould blowing process here, under the mould blown manufacturing section. Image: William Barclay Parsons Collection, New York Public Library Archives. Accessed through Wikimedia Commons.

When we find artefacts at a site and get them back to the lab, one of the first things we look at is when they might have been made (even though we’re most interested in when they were used, which is not the same thing). Bottles (and other artefacts as well) are covered in physical clues that can help date when they were made, thanks to modifications in manufacturing techniques and changes in style or fashion over the decades. Such clues are visible in the seams of a bottle, its shape, the type of closure (top of the bottle) and a hundred other scars and traces left behind by the manufacturing process.

Various glass bottle moulds, into which the hot glass would have been placed and then blown into shape by skilled glassblowers during the 19th century. These would have resulted in seams running up the sides of the bottles they made (in the case of the two piece moulds) or around the shoulder (where the dip mould stops), which allow us to identify exactly which method was used. Dip moulds tend to suggest earlier dates of manufacture than two piece moulds (although not always!). Images: Lindsey 2010. 

Image of the Owen’s Automatic Bottling Machine, #6. Michael Owen’s invention, patented in 1904, was the first fully automated bottle making machine and paved the way for the 20th century machine made bottle industry. Image: Walbridge 1920, from Lindsey 2010.

The information these scars provide can be anything from extremely broad date ranges to quite narrow periods of manufacture. There’s an obvious and highly visible distinction, for example, between 20^th century machine made bottles and (usually) pre-1900 mould or free blown bottles, but dating an artefact to one century or the other is, unfortunately, a little inexact for our purposes. On the other hand, characteristics like crown top closures (invented in 1892) or the Codd style soda bottle (patented in 1870 (UK) and 1873 (USA) and used until the early 20^th century) can help to narrow down the date to a specific decade (Lindsey 2010).

From left to right: A 19th century dip moulded black beer bottle, probably made before the 1880s (note the slightly wonky shape); a crown top Robinson & Sons bottle manufactured after 1892; a 20th century machine made pharmaceutical bottle, dated by the seams you can see running up the side of the bottle from the base to the top of the lip; a Codd-style Smith & Holland soda water bottle, made after the style was patented in 1873 (in this case we know the bottle was made between 1920 and 1924, when Smith & Holland were operating). Images: J. Garland.

A page from the 1906 catalogue of the Illinois Glass Company, one of the many glassmaking companies operating at the time. Image: Lindsey 2010.

Unfortunately, however, some bottles have very few traces of the manufacturing process evident on the glass and can only be dated very roughly. Even when the details of manufacture are visible, we have to be aware that the transition from one manufacturing technique to another (and thus their associated dates) was never clear cut. Since these bottles were being made by individual glassmaking companies and, within that, by individual glassmakers, a lot of the variation in early bottles is as dependent on the people behind the process as it is on the technology available. It’s simultaneously one of the coolest things about 19^th century artefacts – the personal touch behind each object – and the most frustrating, from a dating perspective at least.

A 1908 photograph of a gaffer (glassblower) and his team manufacturing glass bottles at West Virginia factory. Image: Lewis Hine photo, Library of Congress, from Lindsey 2010.

Fortunately, we have alternative ways of figuring out the manufacturing dates of glass vessels. As we’ve mentioned before, sometimes bottles will have a maker’s mark stamped on the base and, depending on how often a manufacturer changed their stamp (and how well documented those changes are), we can use these to establish when an artefact was made. Other times, we’ll be able to determine the contents of the bottle from embossing on the glass and figure out when that product was being made or sold – like many of the pharmaceutical and soda bottles we’ve already featured on the blog.

Left: A bottle base made by glassmakers Cooper & Wood, Portobello (Scotland). We know that the company began in 1859, but the partnership dissolved in 1868, giving us a 9 year range for the manufacture of this bottle (Toulouse 1971: 141). Right: An R & J Milsom, Lyttelton, aerated water bottle. Again, we know that Richard Milsom and his son James went into partnership in 1879, but James became sole owner in 1885, dating the manufacture of this bottle to the 6 year period they were in business together (Donaldson et al. 1990). Images: J. Garland.

This is great if the product is a short-lived one that’s well documented, but more often than not we’ll come across a product like Lea & Perrins, which has been made continuously since the 1830s or one like W & W’s Double Refined Table Salt, about which very little information was available (Tasker 1989: 88). Similarly, a bottle manufacturer might have used the same maker’s mark on a bottle for a long period of time: glassmaking company Parke, Davis & Co used the same initials on its bottles from 1875 through until the 20^th century (Toulouse 1971: 417). Even if the marks do change over time, if there’s no record of those changes and when they occurred, we still can’t narrow down the date.

Left: A Lea and Perrins bottle, with a date of manufacture somewhere between 1852 (when it was first imported into New Zealand) and the early 1900s. Right: the base of a jar of W & W’s Double Refined Table Salt, of unknown age. Images: J. Garland.

Sometimes a maker’s mark will only be visible as initials or a monogram that we can’t always trace back to the manufacturer. These can be some of the most frustrating artefacts to come across when you’re trying to date a site, because we know that the information is there, on the bottle, but we can’t find or access the resources to make that information useful.

And, while these bits and pieces of information might be able to tell us when a bottle was made, they don’t necessarily tell us when it was used (or how long for) and more importantly, if we’re looking at a whole site, when it might have been discarded. Most of the artefacts we find on 19^th century archaeological sites in New Zealand were made overseas and we have to consider the time it would have taken for them to reach New Zealand when we’re figuring out our dates. We also have to consider the length of time for which an object might have been used – its ‘uselife’ – before being discarded or lost, and ending up in the ground.

With bottles, this is a particular problem thanks to an issue known as bottle re-use. A lot of (if not most) 19^th century bottles would be reused many times by the contents manufacturer (or another manufacturer entirely) before being thrown out (Busch 1987).In New Zealand, this occurred in response to the absence of a local glassmaking industry until the early 20^th century and the effort involved in importing bottles from overseas. Newspapers from the time are filled with advertisements from hotels, soda water manufacturers and pharmacists offering discounts or cash for the return of bottles. There are cases of court action being brought against people or companies who failed to return bottles and were consequently convicted and fined for the offence.

Notices and advertisements in New Zealand newspapers on the issue of bottle return and reuse. Images: Evening Post 10/9/1908; Colonist 13/9/1919; Auckland Star 19/11/1926.

Of course, from a dating perspective, issues like bottle reuse mean that the date of manufacture is almost never an accurate reflection of when a bottle was being used or eventually discarded. It’s just a starting point in the life of an artefact, one piece of information about an object that usually has a bunch of other stories to tell. It’s only when we take that starting point and look at it in light of all the information an object (and the other objects around it) can give us that it becomes a useful window into the past.

And, despite the difficulties involved in artefact dating, it is hugely important that we ask the question in the first place, because it gives us the chance to link assemblages and objects to people in the past. If we can date the use and discard of an object to a specific period, we might be able to figure out who used it and why they threw it away. It’s part of what makes context so integral to what we do, and why we get frustrated with fossickers and people who dig up sites illegally to find collectables – because in doing so, they destroy the additional information that we could have used to link an object with the people who used it.

It’s one of the most important principles of archaeology – that (unlike Indiana Jones) we’re not just interested in the things (although the things are pretty cool and very useful), we’re interested in people and what those things can tell us about them.

Jessie Garland

References

Auckland Star. [online] Available at http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz.

Busch, J., 1987. Second Time Around: A Look at Bottle Reuse. Historical Archaeology, 21(1):67-80.

Colonist. [online] Available at http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz.

Donaldson, B., Hume, G. & Costello, S., 1990. Antique Bottles and Containers of Christchurch and District. Christchurch Antique Bottle and Collectors Club, Christchurch.

Evening Post. [online] Available at http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz.

Lindsey, B., 2010. Historic Glass Bottle Identification & Information Website. Society for Historical Archaeology and Bureau of Land Management. [online] Available: http://www.sha.org/bottle/index.htm.

Tasker, J., 1989. Old New Zealand Bottles and Bygones. Heinemann Reed, Auckland.

Toulouse, J. H., 1971. Bottle Makers and Their Marks. Blackburn Press, New Jersey.