Archaeology

The definition of Archaeology according to the Oxford English Dictionary is as follows:

"The study of human history and prehistory through the excavation of sites and the analysis of artefacts and other physical remains."

Archaeology continues to be a very controversial subject and as years go on it will undoubtedly become more so.  The fundamental problem with archaeology is that the vast majority of the time it requires by it's very definition "the excavation of sites and the analysis of artefacts and other physical remains".  Whilst the excavation of sites is brilliant to enhance our knowledge and understanding of our ancestors it also effectively destroys that site so that any later technology that is invented cannot look at it in the same, perhaps much more productive, way.  English Heritage designate and protect sites and allow occasionally a certain percentage of a site to be excavated but unfortunately this often means that the best parts of a site are excavated now rather than once later technology has been discovered.  It is a circle of debate where there is no correct answer and no correct reasoning as the excavations themselves sometimes lead to new ideas on how to create technology to help in the future!!

I have little experience of archaeology myself.  It seems to me however that the further back in time one looks the more important an archaelogical site becomes.  This is due to the fact that the further back in time you go the fewer of these sites there are to study due to the fact that there is always less evidence.  Generally over time with the human civilisation, sites have become destroyed or perhaps "decayed" through age or even perhaps are so sparse due to the much lower human population at those times.  Also, over long periods of time these sites also become more and more buried and are therefore more difficult to find in the landscape.

Archaeology and Understanding the Victorian's

Archaeologists appear to have little to no interest at all in Victorian times and later.  Some of the reasons behind this are obvious.

The Victorian's Themselves

With the dawn of the industrial revolution the production of waste produced due to human consumption massively increased.  It started to get to the point where the Victorian's were almost running out of places to dump their rubbish.  As a consequence Victorian rubbish dumps are found everywhere and it would be nearly impossible to identify all of these without years and years of scanning through old documents.  This would require significant funding that is simply not and not practicable to be available.

Excavation itself

As I understand it archaeological excavation depends very carefully on stratifying the levels and hence the time line at which events occurred when recovering artefacts.  Excavation requires quite some practical experience, education and management to ensure that it is done properly.  This is not normally necessary during the excavation of a Victorian rubbish dump as rubbish was normally dumped there for a maximum of 10 years and then the Victorian's moved to open up another rubbish dump because it was already full!!!

The Number of Sites

Because Victorian's dumped their rubbish everywhere, there are a huge amount of sites which would have to be documented to be protected by English Heritage in any way.  These sites can vary massively in size between large city dumping sites, to very tiny cottage dumps.  The Victorian's it appears had little regard where their rubbish was dumped as long as it wasn't too near them to cause any sort of infestation or perhaps smelly problem.

Where there was little motor driven agricultural machinery as we understand it today, mainly horse powered machines, Victorian's used to try to dump their rubbish in convenient places when they could.  A good example of this was the excavation of gravel pits and chalk pits.  Although these pits were chiefly excavated by hand for use as building material and fertilisers, often the Victorian's had the good sense to fill them back in again by disposing of their rubbish in these convenient holes.  This is quite well demonstrated if you look on any 1880 to 1900 map.  What you will see is these old chalk and gravel pits that are very often not noticeable today if you look on perhaps google earth for example.  They were simply filled in with Victorian and later rubbish.

Documentation

As time goes on it is clear that documentation about the past has increased.  During Victorian times, education and literature multiplied exponentially especially during the later part of the Victorian era.  This often means that historians are much less interested in Victorian times due to the fact that information is  already available somewhere if you research hard enough.  It is thought that it is less for scholars and hence educational reasoning than it is for the archivist himself.  There is simply less debate over the evidence, it is more a question of finding that evidence that exists somewhere and it is more about toil than it is about intellect.

A comparison of Archaeology and Bottle Digging

Archaeology is certainly considered to be a bit of an art form studied by scholars at the highest levels to become proficient and knowledgeable at the subject.  More often than not trainee archaelogists are used under direction to uncover the secrets of a site carefully exposing layer by layer and recording finds and everything else they see as they go.

In a similar way, bottle diggers themselves normally have a huge knowledge of the Victorian rubbish dumps that they are digging being able to date them to within a few years very accurately.  These rubbish tips are normally found by intensive research along with some good fortune.  "Bottle digging" itself by it's very nature requires a strong physical aptitude and a huge amount of stamina.  The reality is that it is normal to dig a six foot hole before one would get to anything of interest to a bottle digger. This normally amounts to a layer of ash where most of the bottles are found. 

The differences in excavation are quite different.  In a way they are both very different forms of archaeological excavation.

These days, modern machinery mean that even the bottle digger will use JCB's to excavate Victorian rubbish dumps in certain situations.  Often deals are struck with, for example, farmers on their land to dig sites.  These bottle diggers are TOTALLY legal and within their rights and excavate based on their own local knowledge and understanding of the site.

There appears to be no inbetween so called "bottle diggers" and archaeologists.  One has strict rules that it is governed by and one is open to complete freedom to act at liberty.  I believe that this is due to the complete lack of interest in the Victorian era by archaeologists and English Heritage.

Natural Protection of Sites

There is some good news in all of this. It is clear to me that as time goes on over the years the archaeologists will start to realise the importance of the Victorian era and the archaeology from that time.  Eventually, I assume, they will develop ways to secure and protect these sites for future generations.  Also, many of the Victorian sites that have been dug by bottle diggers are much later in the Victorian period.  The reasons for this are that most early Victorian sites (particularly in towns) are built on.  During early Victorian times the Victorian's tended to dump their rubbish on the outskirts of the town.  But, quickly towns expanded and built on those areas and of course most of those buildings still stand today protecting those areas of Victorian rubbish.  As the towns continued to expand, later Victorian rubbish was dumped further and further away from the centre of town and those tend to be the sites that have been exposed by bottle diggers today.  As Victorian buildings were substantial in their nature the vast majority of those buildings will stand for a long time to come and hence protect the potential archaeological treasures that may lay beneath them.

Cities were marginally different in this regard, particularly London and cities up North.  They all seemed to be much more organised in where rubbish was taken and still much of the early Victorian rubbish sites are not built on due to the size and depth of some of those sites.  As a result many bottle diggers do risk life and limb to excavate these very deep sites.  This is something that really should be governed in some way or form but unfortunately is down to individual bottle diggers to provide their own safety assurances.

Bottle Digging

It is clear to me that there is nothing illegal in bottle digging.  If permission to dig is granted by the landowner of a site then it simply cannot be illegal as English Heritage appear to have no interest in these sites.  At this stage I do not believe it to be endangering any future knowledge either.  In fact it is just the opposite.  A great deal of bottle diggers are now putting back their knowledge onto the internet to provide historians with knowledge that they did not have previously.  Archaeologists have no regard for this knowledge currently as the information appears to be deemed as too modern.  In 200 years time, things of course may be different.  For now it is down to the common bottle digger to be the archaeologist of more modern evidence of human existence and to uncover the absolutely remarkably inventive and beautiful bottles that the Victorian's patented and used.

I finish with one question:

How long will it be before archaeologists become interested in Victorian rubbish dumps?