Adams - Dating Historical Sites

38
William Hampton Adams
Dating Historical Sites:

The Importance of
Understanding Time Lag
in the Acquisition, Curation,
Use, and Disposal of Artifacts
ABSTRACT
Each object has a lifespan in which it is made, transported,
marketed, used, and discarded. Although the manufacturing
date range for artifacts may be known, we should not equate
the manufacturing range for an object type with the use range
for a particular object. Studies from several locations indicate
ceramic artifacts have lifespans of as much as 15 years and
more in a household before being discarded. Ceramics can
be poor sources for dating sites if used without considering
the cultural contexts in which they are used, yet ceramics are
the artifact class used most often in dating sites.
Not Seeing the Forest for All the Trees

One must be careful when using ceramics
to date sites by accounting for the lifespans of
certain types of wares and the ways in which
ceramics enter and leave the household system.
Some have argued for a change in the way
ceramics are analyzed. For example, Stephen
R. Pendery (1999:58) called for researchers to
transcend the study of ceramics as simply type
fossils for dating archaeological sites and to focus
instead on ceramic trade to understand the larger
system of consumerism in the 17th and early18th centuries. Earlier, Terry H. Klein (1991:78)
had written that if one of the goals of historical archaeology is to describe and explain human
behavior and if ceramics are to be used as
a mechanism to achieve this goal, it is critical
that researchers understand the context(s) in
which ceramics were purchased, used, and discarded. One important facet of this argument is
to understand just how significant the problem of
time lag may be for understanding and interpreting past human behavior. Even more fundamental is the problem of adequate training in ceramic
identification and analysis. If researchers cannot
identify ceramics correctly in the first place, then
Historical Archaeology, 2003, 37(2):3864.
Permission to reprint required.
Accepted for publication 10 December 2001.
whatever else they may try to do with the ceramics is of limited value.
In a vain attempt to disprove seriation, Clyde
Dollar (1968:16) once stated that at Brigham
Youngs Nauvoo house, the ceramics strongly
indicated that the initial deposition of these
artifacts occurred almost twenty years before
Brigham Young arrived at Nauvoo and began the
construction of his house. Clearly, something is
wrong. That something is the time lag phenomenon examined here. This time lag difference
should be expected. Having the ceramics dating
earlier than most of the associated material culture is the norm, not the exception. Similarly,
in South Carolina at the Charles Towne site
(38CH1), occupied from 16701680, Stanley
South derived a mean ceramic date of 1654.4.
This difference may well reflect our present
knowledge of the ceramic types from which the
mean date is derived. It may also reflect a time
lagby the latest items not being present in the
household at Charles Towne when the first settlers arrived in 1670 [emphasis added] (South
1972:90). A 1670s site must be expected to
have ceramics made in the 1650s because the
ceramic vessels had a lifespan. A site occupied
only in the 1670s should be expected to contain
few, if any ceramics made in that decade because
it takes time for these objects to be broken and
discarded.
The study presented here argues that ceramic
tableware vessels can have a lifespan of 1520
years and longer. The length of ceramic (and
other artifact categories) lifespans will vary due
to many cultural factors like wealth, clumsiness,
life cycles, frugality, and so forth. By examining an artifact assemblage with time lag and
lifespans in mind, a better understanding can be
derived for how that assemblage came together
in a site. While a 1520 year time frame for
ceramic lifespans is emphasized, the real lifespans are not known. Far too few site reports
provide the necessary descriptions and illustrations for such a reanalysis of the data, and only
the authors interpretations remain.
Many historical archaeologists have recognized
that ceramic dates must be interpreted. For
example, Ron May found similar differences in
WILLIAM HAMPTON ADAMSDating Historical Sites: The Importance of Understanding Time Lag
ceramic and glass dates at a California homestead. He examined the

makers marks on whiteware ceramics at the Roeslein
Homestead, CA-SDI-316, and compared the results
against glass, square nails, and a few other classes of
artifacts. We knew the house was built in the mid
1880s, based on 99% square (or cut to the purists)
nails. Glass containers dated to about 1890 to 1920.
The marked ceramics fell in the mid 1880s to 1910.
The historical information places William Roeslein as
homesteading the land in 1895 and selling to in 1917,
where upon the buyer demolished the house and used
the water rights in a water district (May 2001).
May suggested that adding eight years to the

ceramic dates would bring them into line with
the glass dates. The research presented here
suggests it is not that simple.
Dating Methods
The most accurate means of dating a site and
often features within a site is through historical documents, including photographs and maps.
Oral history, at times, can also provide accurate
dating of sites and features. While these need
to be verified by the archaeological evidence,
the historical document normally should have
priority if we were to rank validity. Both
documentary evidence and its interpretation,
however, can err. Such data are preferable to
using mathematical sorcery.
Two different approaches have been used to
date historical sites via the artifacts: relative
dating and numerical dating. Relative dating
uses terminus post quem and terminus ante
quem dates.
The terminus ante quem date is not used very
often; it is a date before which the underlying
layers were deposited (Nol Hume 1969:69).
For example, all layers beneath Mt. St. Helens
volcanic ash predate May 1980 (ignoring the
earlier eruptions). However, using artifacts, this
dating is much more difficult because it is not an
event that is not being dated but, instead, objects
with a range of manufacturing and use dates.
The terminus post quem date, usually abbreviated as the TPQ date, is a date after which the
layer was deposited. It can, of course, be any
time after, but not before [emphasis in original]
(Nol Hume 1969:69). Ivor Nol Hume regarded
TPQ as the cornerstone of all archaeological
reasoning (Nol Hume 1970:11).
39
The knowledge of manufacture dates for artifacts is an invaluable aid in the determination
of the occupation dates for historic sites. This
is not to say that the manufacture date and the
occupation date are the same, but rather that
there is a connection between the two in that
the manufacture date provides a terminus post
quem [emphasis in original] (South 1977:202).
As South recognized, the occupation date and the
manufacture date are not the same. The problem is that a few researchers do not always heed
that observation. They make the leap from the
artifacts from this site were made in the 1830s
to the site dating to the 1830s. Not only are
these two kinds of date ranges different, they
may differ by a generation or more. A ware
is certainly not likely to disappear from use the
year it ceases to be made. Even if most owners
had ceased to buy the ware before the terminal
manufacture date the ware would continue in
use some years after that date simply because
it had a certain life expectancy (Walker 1972:
130, 134). What is the lifespan for various
artifacts?
The example Nol Hume provided involved
a transfer-printed ceramic fragment showing a
bridge built in 1832; hence, the ceramic vessel
must date after 1832 (Nol Hume 1970:11).
This fragment was found in Layer 27A beneath
a rammed earth floor in a barn and, therefore,
the layer must have been deposited some time
after 1832.
To determine how long after, we must study the artifacts from the layers above. If the artifacts overlying
the barn floor all date from the mid-19th century, it
would be reasonable to suppose that the barn ceased
to exist about that time and to assume that layer 27A
was sealed over no later than about 1860 and, indeed,
a sufficient time before it for the barn floor to be laid
and for the barn itself to be destroyed. By this simple
logic we can date the lifespan of the building within the
period 18321860 (Nol Hume 1969:69).
This simple logic is flawed. The earliest

date the ceramic fragment could have found its
way into Layer 27A would have been 1832, true,
although highly unlikely. That post-1832 ceramic
fragment was found in the layer predating the
barn. Again, for arguments sake, say that this
ceramic was of the group classified by Patricia
M. Samford (1997) as American Views and dated
as 18101854 with peak production being about
1830. This particular fragment was made, say,
40
from 18321854. Say this plate was used for 15

years. Thus, it could have been broken anytime
from 1832 plus 15 years to 1854 plus 15 years or
18471869. So the earliest the Layer 27A could
have ended in terms of its probable deposition
would have been 1847 and the latest would have
been about 1869. Hence, the barn construction
postdates the range of 18471869. Assuming
that the mid-19th century refers to the middle
third, i.e., 18341867, then what was the real
date of deposition? What did Nol Hume mean
by date from the mid-19th century? Did he
mean manufactured or did he mean used during
the mid-19th century? Assume that Nol Hume
meant that those artifacts were manufactured in
the period from 18341867 (i.e., the mid-19th
century). These artifacts were not defined, so it
is not known if these were long-lasting tools or
short-lasting consumables. In either case, these
objects had lifespans of several years. Say that
the average was 10 years, just for the sake of
argument. In that case, the use of the barn
contents would date to the mid-19th century plus
10 years, or 18441877. Nol Hume dated the
barns lifespan as 18321860, whereas using the
time lag effect examined here, the earliest reasonable date for construction might be 1847, and it
could easily be as late as 1869.
Take a different approach with the same
example. Again assume this fragment was
part of the American Views series ending in
1854, with a particular view dating 1832 or
afterward. If that vessel pattern was produced
from 18321854 (22 years), then assuming an
equal production figure in each year, any given
vessel with that pattern has a 1:22 chance of
being produced in any given year or a 4.5%
probability per annum (Bartovics 1981). Thus,
as each year passes, the higher the probability
is that the particular vessel recovered in a site
had been made. By 1840, in this example,
only a 36% chance existed that the vessel had
been made yet. Assuming a bell-shaped curve
(normal distribution) for production means that
the majority of production occurs in the middle
of the range and, thus, the initial and ending
years have virtually no production. In such a
curve, the 1832 and 1833 production would be
so negligible that effectively the TPQ date is
later than 1832. In cases of rapid acceptance
of a new product and accompanying production
meeting demand, then the total numbers of that
HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY 37(2)
product produced will be in those initial years

making the TPQ date a better approximation.
The simple logic discussed by Nol Hume
is anything but simple. As he recognized, the
date for a layer can be any time after the TPQ
date. Is the terminus post quem date meaningful? Certainly. Is the terminus post quem date
being used correctly? Not always. The use
of TPQ dates needs to be combined with an
understanding of artifact lifespans and time lag,
if the way site occupants created the site is to
be understood.
Ethnographic Studies
Several prehistorians and ethnographers have
examined the issue of ceramic lifespan or longevity starting with George M. Fosters work
in Mexico in 1959 (Foster 1960). The purpose
of that ethnographic research was to assess how
many pots would be in a kitchen and how often
these would break. By establishing a baseline,
one could then project how long an archaeological site might have been occupied. Foster
looked at the life expectancy of pottery types by
examining the breakage rates in four household
kitchens. The lifespan of ceramics in these settings was short. One informant, Otilia Zavala,
estimated that a cooking vessel in daily use has
a life-expectancy of approximately one year
(Foster 1960:607). Her cups hanging on the wall
were used for special occasions and were then
10 to 12 years old. Two large water jars were
12 years old. The jugs and cups were made
at the time she and her family moved into their
new house. Micaela Gonzlez also indicated
that daily used cooking vessels lasted about a
year. She had a water jar last 22 years. In the
household of Carmen Pea was a 45-liter olla de
a 2 reales. It was acquired by her husbands
grandfather between 40 and 50 years ago
(Foster 1960:607). Her cooking wares were a
few months old to 2.5 years old. Foster relied
upon informants opinions and memory for his
data and did not conduct an independent study.
Foster derived five factors affecting the life
expectancy for ceramics there: basic strength,
pottery uses, mode of use, causes of breakage,
and pottery costs. The basic strength of the
vessel certainly affects its longevity, for poorly
fired and unglazed wares broke more easily. Pottery function or use affects lifespan. Water jars
and casserole pans used infrequently had longer

lifespans than did items in daily use. The mode
of use involved comparing use over an open fire
versus a stove. Objects that customarily are
used at waist height appear to last longer than
those customarily used on or near the ground
(Foster 1960:608). Causes of breakage: The
most common threats to pottery longevity appear
to be the housewifes carelessness, the fumblings
and blunderings of children, and the presence of
domestic animals in the kitchen, probably in
the order given (Foster 1960:608). Pottery
costs were not a factor in the village he studied
because each household made its own wares.
Among the Shipibo-Conibo in Peru, the
average time from firing to breakage and discard varied from 316 months (DeBoer 1974;
DeBoer and Lathrap 1979:128). Among the
Fulani in Cameroon, the ceramics lasted a bit
longer, with median ages being 2.7 years for
bowls and for small cooking pots, 2.5 years for
medium cooking pots, 10.2 years for cooking and
storage vessels, and 12.5 years for large storage
pots (David 1972:141). Among the Tarahumara,
Allen G. Pastron (1974:108109) found that each
household made 25 pots per year to replace the
ones broken; given that a household has between
7 and 19 pots, then the pots last 3.59.5 years if
two pots are broken per year or 1.43.8 years if
the higher breakage rates prevailed. Storage vessels were the longest lasting vessel form among
the Shipibo-Conibo and among the Tarahumara,
in the latter case lasting 1015 years. Importantly in all these studies is that each family
made their own ceramics, that these are low-fired
earthenwares, and that most ceramics were used
in cooking. The breakage rates are simply not
comparable to those for the harder, refined earthenwares found on Euroamerican sites, which had
mostly tablewares, not cooking vessels. Time lag
does not appear to be a significant issue on prehistoric sites where the potters and the users were
one and the same. However, in the case of traded
ceramics, this may not be the case. The hardness
of the ceramics being studied plays a large role
in breakage rates as would the attitude towards
curation when an item can be so easily replaced.
What is Time Lag?
Time lag was defined by William H. Adams
and Linda P. Gaw (1977:218) as the difference
41
between the date of manufacture and the date

of deposition. Objects have a lifespan in the
cultural system. When they are discarded, they
enter the natural system (Schiffer 1972). The
lifespan for an artifact is much like that for an
organism. It is created and it is destroyed. If
an object is later recovered within an archaeological context, then that objects lifespan length
becomes the amount it contributes to the time
lag in an assemblage. The manufacturing date
for an artifact cannot be equated with an
artifacts use date.
Time lag has several components, each
contributing different amounts of time to the
total. The number of components and their
duration depend upon the kind of product, its
destination, and the time period. Objects made
before the Industrial Revolution, objects used in
an isolated frontier site, expensive objects, and
objects used by poor people will have longer
time lags for practical and socioeconomic reasons. However, generally an object is made,
used, and discarded, and these time periods,
when combined with shipping time and storage
time, make up an objects lifespan. In a general
way, then, time lag maybe characterized as being
the difference between T1 (Manufacturing) and
T3 (Disposal) in the following scheme:
T1 Manufacturing
a. Manufacture
b. Leaves manufacturer
c. Transportation
d. Warehouse
e. Transportation
f. Arrives at wholesaler
g. Transportation
h. Arrives at retailer
T2 Purchasing
a. Purchase
b. Normal life
c. Heirloom
d. Recycling
T3 Disposal
T4 Recovery
a. Recovery from archaeological context
b. Veneration and storage
T5 Apocalypse
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The point in history in which these events

occur is extremely important for interpretation,
not only because of improvements in manufacturing efficiency through time but also because
of transportation mode, international events like
wars and financial crises, and duty rates. Add
to these aspects, the nature of the object itself.
What motivating factors affect an objects production and availability?
The study of time lag is an important aspect
in the study of consumerism and commodity
acquisitions. The archaeological study of the
history of consumerism and commodity flows
has been a significant focus in historical archaeology since the 1970s (Adams 1977; Riordan
and Adams 1985; Spencer-Wood 1987; Henry
1991; Klein 1991; LeeDecker 1991; Pendery
1992; Adams et al. 2001). Some studies focus
on consumption patterning as a reflection of
ethnicity or socioeconomic status, while others
seek to understand consumption of commodities
in broader historical contexts.
Interestingly, working at the same time but
independently of one another, three groups of
researchers determined that the best approach
to understanding a site was to use not just
the median date calculated from artifacts but
also the mean initial and mean terminal dates.
They also argued for researchers to go beyond
a single artifact class and place material culture
within the historical contexts and site functions
(Adams and Gaw 1975, 1976, 1977; Salwen
and Bridges 1977; Turnbaugh and Turnbaugh
1977:97).
Bert Salwen and Sarah T. Bridges (1977)
expanded upon Souths mean ceramic date
(MCD) formula by adding to it the initial
mean date and the final mean date as a means
of providing a better view of the site occupation. While an improvement, no doubt, it still
suffered from the methodological flaws inherent
in the original formula.
One of the greatest flaws in the way researchers used the MCD was applying it to ceramic
fragments instead of vessel counts. Fragment
counts are entirely meaningless for most kinds
of analysis, so multiplying fragment count of
ceramic types with a median date for that type
can only produce garbage.
Quantifying Time Lag: The Assemblage

from Silcott, Washington
While archaeologists certainly recognized that
objects had a lifespan, most thought it too short
to affect site interpretations. The first study to
quantify time lag in American sites was done for
the assemblages from Silcott, Washington (Adams
and Gaw 1975, 1976, 1977). That study demonstrated rather conclusively that, at least for
late-19th and early-20th-century rural sites, time
lag might be a very significant factor needing
to be analyzed to interpret artifact-derived site
dates correctly.
The Silcott study used primarily makers marks
to date the ceramic and glass artifacts (Godden
1964; Toulouse 1971). The date range for the
mark is the date for a given specimen, not the
manufacturing date for the form or design. A
company for reasons totally independent of the
paste, glaze, decoration, or vessel form changed
the makers mark periodically. The Silcott data
were analyzed using the means for the initial,
medium, and terminal dates. This contrasts
greatly with a method like the MCD (South
1972) that only used the mean of median dates.
By looking at the fuller kinds of dates, a clearer
view of site chronology emerged.
Ceramic artifacts at Silcott remained in the
system years longer than the glass artifacts had,
but what was their full lifespan? The assumption
made by Adams and Gaw was that these bottles
had a short lifespan, but the researchers lacked
an independent confirmation of this factor. Timothy B. Riordan, who spent three field seasons at
Silcott, provided the needed data in his study of
Fort Walla Walla.
Confirmation of the Time Lag Effect
At the Fort Walla Walla Dump Site in southeastern Washington, Riordan recovered material
associated with units from the black 9th Cavalry
(occupation there from 19021904) and the white
1st Cavalry (occupation 19091910) (Riordan
1985:107115). The Fort Walla Walla Dump
Site provided excellent comparative material for
the artifacts recovered from the excavations of
the Custer Road Dump Site at Fort Mackinac in
Michigan (Brose 1967). Both studies suggest

that whenever a new commanding officer arrived,
the forts were cleaned up, and junk was taken to
the dumps (Riordan 1985:97). Trench 1 at Fort
Walla Walla contained 9th Cavalry hat badges
and band musicians badges. The 9th Cavalry
was at Fort Walla Walla from 19021904, while
the band musician badge was a style removed
from service in 1903. In 1902, the Army
switched button styles from the line eagle to
the Arms of the U.S. Of the 32 buttons found
here, 31 were line eagle style. Thus, Trench 1
dates from 1902 to 1904 and represents only the
9th Cavalry deposits (Riordan 1985:102107).
A trench excavated by Walla Walla Community
College has insignia of the 1st and 14th cavalries; these units were there together only in
19091910. Of 552 buttons, 405 were the new
style introduced in 1903. The Trench 2/7 had
only general insignia without unit designations;
however, because 27 of 35 buttons were of a
style discontinued in 1903, the deposits appear
to be contemporaneous with Trench 1. The
associated cartridges and the glass and ceramic
artifacts were dated using makers marks, and
their relative time lag was determined.
The previous study by Adams and Gaw (1977)
had suggested that at Silcott, a small farming
community also in southeastern Washington,
ceramics had been made some 1726 years
earlier than the bottles discarded with them.
Riordan was able to show that the bottles were
43
made some 4.76.4 years earlier than the date for

the deposits as indicated by the insignia, using
the mean median date (Tables 1 and 2). Cartridges were also manufactured 4.4 to 6.5 years
earlier, while ceramics were made 11.1 to 17.1
years earlier. While the time lag for ceramics
in this context was less than at Silcott, Riordan,
nevertheless, replicated the fact that time lag
was a significant factor in not only ceramics but
also disposable items like cartridges and bottles
to a lesser amount. From his study, researchers learned that bottles continued in the cultural
system about 5 years before being discarded.
Reassessment of the Silcott Data.
In the 25 years since the original analysis at
Silcott, further research has been accomplished
on dating ceramics and bottles. Using those
new data, the Silcott data were reanalyzed.
The Weiss Ranch Sites were analyzed separately,
instead of lumping as done in the original study,
and one site, 45AS89, was not included here
because it had only one ceramic with a terminal date. The data provided by George Miller
(2000) were included, except for the marks for
W. S. George, which Lois Lehner (1988:16263)
dates to the 1930s. Lehners date for this mark
appears to be in error. The new analysis has
produced a shorter difference between the glass
and ceramic dates than in the original study.
Time lag figures range from 13.5 to 26.0 years
TABLE 1
TIME LAG AT FORT WALLA WALLA
WWCC
T1
T2/7
Glass
Ceramic
Mean Initial
Mean Initial
1890.88
1884.40
1888.38
1889.10
1883.95
1887.40
Glass
Ceramic
Mean Median
Mean Median
1903.06
1892.40
1897.87
1891.90
1898.26
1888.60
Glass
Ceramic
Mean Terminal
Mean Terminal
1914.55
1901.80
1911.36
1894.60
1912.57
1894.65
Insignia
Cartridge
Mean Date
Mean
1909.50
1903.00
1903.00
1900.00
1903.00
1898.20
Riordan 1985:113
44
TABLE 2
DIFFERENCES BETWEEN MEANS FOR DATES FROM FORT WALLA WALLA
WWCC
T1
T2/7
Unweighted
Mean
Glass/Ceramic Difference between Mean Initial

Glass/Ceramic Difference between Mean Median
Glass/Ceramic Difference between Mean Terminal
-6.48
-10.66
-12.75
+0.72
-5.97
-16.76
+3.45
-9.66
-17.92
-0.77
-8.71
-15.81
Insignia Date in Relation to Glass Mean Initial

Insignia Date in Relation to Ceramic Mean Initial
-18.62
-15.10
-14.62
-13.90
-19.05
-15.60
-17.43
-14.87
Insignia Date in Relation to Cartridge Mean

Insignia Date in Relation to Glass Mean Median
Insignia Date in Relation to Ceramic Mean Median
-6.50
-6.44
-17.10
-0.72
-5.13
-11.10
-4.45
-4.74
-14.40
-3.89
-5.44
-14.20
Insignia Date in Relation to Glass Mean Terminal

Insignia Date in Relation to Ceramic Mean Terminal
+5.05
-7.70
+8.36
-8.40
+9.57
-8.35
+7.66
-8.15
Riordan 1985:113
for initial dates, 5.221.7 years for median dates,

and 4.716.0 years for terminal dates (Table 3).
Weighted means combining the three assemblages
were 15.8 years for initial dates, 11.1 years for
median dates, and 10.0 years for terminal dates.
Thus, at Silcott, ceramics had a time lag of 10
16 years more than the bottles time lag. Using
Riordans data (1985) for bottle time lag of 4.5
years, the average ceramic vessels have lifespans
as much as 20 years.
Miller objected to the use of only makers marks
in the Silcott study (Miller 2000, elec. comm.):
I feel that the use of only the marked bottles has
skewed bottle dates in at least two ways.
1. The use of trademarks by bottle manufacturers became

much more common after the introduction of the
Owens Automatic Bottle Blowing Machine in 1903.
To leave out unmarked bottles skews the sample
toward the later bottles. Even during the early
machine-made period, many bottles were unmarked.
For example, the Owens Company did not begin
using a trademark until 1911 (Toulouse 1971).
2. The production and consumption of bottles greatly
increased from the late-19th century on into the
20th century. American bottle production tripled
from 7,770,000 gross in 1899 to 24,000,000 gross
in 1917 (Miller and Sullivan 1984:88). Much of
this increase was due to falling prices for bottles
and the development of good cheap closures for
bottles as well as jars.
3. Given that bottle consumption was increasing through
the period that the Wilson store was occupied
TABLE 3
REASSESSMENT OF TIME LAG AT SILCOTT
Date
Material
Store
Dump 88A
Dump 88B
Weighted
Mean
Initial
Glass
Ceramic
Difference
1905.0
1889.3
15.7
1899.5
1886.0
13.5
1912.0
1886.0
26.0
1903.9
1888.1
15.8
Median
Glass
Ceramic
Difference
1911.8
1906.6
5.2
1914.8
1893.1
21.7
1901.2
1893.8
7.4
1910.1
1899.0
11.1
Terminal
Glass
Ceramic
Difference
1919.0
1914.3
4.7
1911.0
1903.5
7.5
1917.5
1901.5
16.0
1917.7
1910.7
10.0
(19101928), and that the site has been lumped
into a mega assemblage, the bottle distribution
would clearly be weighted toward the later period
of the sites occupation. Thus the resulting dates
would exaggerate the amount of time lag between
the bottles and ceramic vessels. Given this information, I do not see how the time lag between the
bottles and ceramics can be 20 years.
Makers marks began soon after the introduction of a separate base mold, but did not
begin to be common until the development of
the bottling machines of the 1890s. So Miller
is correct that the closer to the present time,
the greater the percentage of marked bottles.
However, the unmarked bottles were left out
from this study because it would have been
like comparing apples and oranges. The study
limits itself to makers marks. Most artifacts
from Bill Wilsons store came from a single
trash pit containing 3,395 complete (or reconstructable) artifacts, including 625 bottles and
40 ceramic vessels, deposited on top of a 1914
calendar. The store burned in 1928, and the site
was not reoccupied. Bottles probably made by
the American Bottle Company in their Streator,
Illinois, and Newark, Ohio, plants were not
included; these bottles had no base mark, but
had a side mark code like 15S4, which meant
1915 Streator machine 4. Four were recovered
from 1915, 12 from 1916, 13 from 1917, and
8 from 1918. If these and similar code-marked
bottles are added, the mean initial date of bottles
at the store increases from 1905.0 to 1908.3, and,
hence, the time lag of ceramics increases an
additional 3.3 years as well. Regarding Millers
second point, bottle production did dramatically
increase with the rise in machine production
beginning in the 1890s. Bottles became more
common and increasingly cheaper to produce.
This stimulated a positive feedback with bottle
and jar fillers and the public. However, did such
a situation stimulate Bill and Maggie Wilson to
buy more ketchup bottles or mustard jars? They
were the storekeepers and so bought at wholesale
prices anyway. Back to the main point, Miller
suggests that later bottles were disproportionately
overrepresented in the bottle assemblage analyzed
in the time lag study because more were produced and later bottles were more commonly
marked. What he suggests is that there must
have been earlier, unmarked bottles in the assemblage, so that time lag is reduced. That is not
45
likely, for the store was built about 1910. One

should not expect for there to be more than a
handful prior to when the store opened. A few
bottles predating 1910 are in the assemblage, a
group of AB beer bottles dating 19041907 that
came from the root cellar. Sometime after they
had no use for that 1914 calendar (an insurance
wallet card), the Wilsons began throwing it and
other trash over the fence onto an abandoned
lot. Included in that trash were 69 bottles with
side marks of 1913, 1914, 1915, 1916, 1917,
and 1918. Only four bottles (made by Pacific
Coast Glass, 19241930) need to date after that
time. So the trash feature has a TPQ starting
date of 1914 and a TPQ ending date of 1924
or later. The trash must predate 1928 when the
site was destroyed.
Mean Ceramic Date Formula
and Time Lag
During the original analysis of time lag for
Silcott, the literature was searched for similar
instances of time lag. It was discouraging at first
when looking at the MCD developed by South
(1972), for its results were close to the occupation dates and, hence, did not appear to support
the thesis that time lag was a significant factor.
South kindly commented at length on the
original manuscript for the time lag article on
Silcott and some of his comments appeared in
the published version (Adams and Gaw 1977).
In his correspondence, he accepted the basic
premise of time lag but did not regard it as
being of such duration as to be significant
(Stanley South 1976a, pers. comm.; 1976b, pers.
comm.). He also thought that sites exhibiting
a significant amount of time lag might be limited to the late-19th and early-20th century sites
because he did not find it in earlier ones using
the MCD formula.
One of the reasons South was not seeing
time lag show up using the MCD was that
he had already incorporated the concept in his
dating formula; he had adjusted the dates to
compensate for it. Souths temporal chart of
historic ceramic production was constructed in
conference with Nol Hume on the basis of
archaeological and historical documentation.
Conservatism in assigning an early date to
annular pearlware for use with the Mean Ceramic
Date Formula was due to the expected lag of
46
imports from England and the fact that this

type had not been historically documented or
found on archaeological sites in an early (ca.
1780) context in North America (Ferguson
1977:49, citing Nol Hume 1969:394). The
manufacturing dates South provided were not
the actual ranges a given type was made but,
instead, reflected Souths interpretation of when
they would have been available in sufficient
quantities to be present in archaeological sites
and, therefore, contribute to the dating formula.
This selection process varies from type to type
and was based largely on his opinion. The
dating formula worked only because South
skewed the date ranges to compensate for time
lag. For example, for debased Rouen faience,
Type 21, South recognized that it was found on
French sites by about 1755 but not on British
sites until about 1775 (South 1977:213). Despite
its having been manufactured from ca. 1755
on, South gives its date range as 17751800.
Thus, he has adjusted the formula to allow 20
years for it to reach British sites. Similarly,
although pearlware was known from 1779,
South assigned it a date of 1790 for purpose
of the MCD (Ferguson 1977:48-51). Because
of these adjustments, the MCD provided a date
that appears somewhat reasonable but, for the
same reason, has little scientific validity. It is
a hodge-podge of actual manufacturing dates
alongside adjusted dates. The time has come
for someone to assemble the latest ceramic data
for each type and provide the real manufacturing
dates without any adjustments. Once that has
been done, researchers can start looking at how
much time lag existed for sites with different
people in different locales and times.
A copy of the time lag article for Silcott was
sent to Nol Hume for his comments; here is his
response (Ivor Nol Hume 1978, pers. comm.):
With regard to Stan Souths formula, I can say only
that the majority of my attributions are for production dates and do not take distribution time lags into
consideration. I agree, however, that now and again
I mention certain types as not being found in colonial
contexts after or before this, that, or other dates; by
and large, I am basing my dating on patents, dated
specimens and the like. My objection to Stan Souths
use of my book stems from the fact that my brackets
are intended only as the most basic of guidelines, and
makes no attempt to differentiate between, say, early,
median, and late creamwareyet no archaeologist finding fragments should be content to simply classify his
yellow ware as creamware and thus leave it floating

loose in a sixty year time bracket. I do not deny that
(to my astonishment), regardless of Stans source, his
system seems to work. I contend, however, that if you
know enough to put all your wares into the brackets
he suggests, you also know enough to recognize the
terminus post quem based on the most recent artifact
present. When we tested the theory for Stan, using
a large, well group, our lab people took three days to
arrive at what was a reasonable median date based on
Stans formula. However, it took me ten minutes to
arrive at the terminus post quem, and, after all, it was
that date, rather than the median date for the range of
the artifacts, that we were seeking!
That the MCD method is seriously flawed has

been recognized by many researchers, but not for
the reasons discussed above.
Acceptance of the Significance
of the Time Lag Effect
The main reason researchers did not realize the
extent of the time lag was, as discussed above,
because the MCD method masked the effect by
having incorporated time lag into the published
date ranges. Had the real manufacture dates
been used, the time lag discrepancy would have
been much more noticeable.
Some archaeologists either dismissed time lag
immediately as not a significant amount of time
or relegated it to being only a frontier phenomenon. For example, at Yaughan and Curriboo
plantations, the sites did not follow the normal
time lag pattern usually associated with historic
sites on the economic and geographic margins
of society (Wheaton et al. 1983:337). While
site location and socioeconomic status certainly
affect the amount of time lag present in a site,
the main component of time lag is the period
of use for different classes of artifacts. Even
a house site in Staffordshire, England, lying
adjacent to a pottery factory would still have a
significant amount of time lag for the ceramic
vessels used in the household.
Researchers should not be using ceramics to
date sites, without supporting those dates with
documentary and artifact evidence. Ceramics
should be used to better understand the supply
and demand in a market economy at the time
of their purchase. For example, a cabin built in
Kentucky in 1790 and destroyed by fire in 1800
might well have ceramics dating mostly from the
1780s, 1770s, or before. While the recovered
ceramics would have obviously been used at the

site right up to the fire, the selection process
and availability factors affecting that assemblage
had an historic context in the 1770s or 1780s,
probably in Maryland, Virginia, or North
Carolina. What is the real context for that
ceramic assemblage?
The time is long overdue to re-evaluate just
exactly what is being used to date sites and how
valid those approaches may be. The first thing
to do is to recognize that any given site is the
end product of people making purchasing decisions set against the backdrop of a world market
economy.
World History Really Did Affect
Material Culture
To understand the material assemblage at any
given site, that assemblage must first be placed
within its full historic context. Researching
variations in consumer choice is worthwhile
only if both the aspects of the demand side
and the supply side of the equation are examined. Throughout the more than five centuries
of European expansion studied by historical
archaeologists, the subjects of the research were
intricately linked into a world market of manufacturing, transport, and distributioneach of
which was affected by technological change, tax
laws, duty, economies, and wars.
British Colonial sites in America from the
17th century are distinguished from later sites
there by the remarkable diversity of the ceramic
assemblage. One of the main reasons for this
was that prior to the Navigation Act of 1651,
British merchant ships were largely unregulated;
another reason was that Dutch and other foreign
traders were actively supplying New England
and Chesapeake merchants with goods (Pendery 1999:5860). How did changes in shipping affect the ceramic availability in terms of
quantity and sources?
Historical sites are often thought of in the context of local and regional history, but in terms
of commodities, researchers must think globally.
For example, the Napoleonic Wars in Europe
severely impacted the importation of goods
from there during the 17931801 period and
again from 1803 onward. After a brief period of
peace between 1801 and 1803, the situation for
American and foreign shipping worsened yearly,
47
particularly in 1807 as a result of the French

blockade of Britain established by Napoleons
Berlin Decree. Great Britain, in turn, responded
with the Orders in Council of November 1807,
prohibiting trade between America and Europe
(North 1961:37). When the French and British
seized 800 American merchantmen running their
blockades, the United States was forced to prohibit American shipping from foreign commerce
by enacting an embargo on 22 December 1807.
The embargo would have affected the import
totals for 1808 and the first six months of 1809,
due to the fiscal year beginning on 1 October.
The total value of exports in 1807 was $108 million, followed by only $22 million in 1808, and
$52 million in 1809 (Pitkin 1816:36).
The Embargo Act prohibited trade with
Europe, but its affect on the American economy
was too severe, and so the Non-Intercourse Act
(1 March 1809) replaced it. The latter prohibited direct trade with British and French territories and forbid importation of goods made in
those countries. The Macon Bill in May 1810
re-established trade with those nations, but only
20 months elapsed between it and the outbreak
of the War of 1812. The closing off of the
import trade was effective in promoting the rise
of domestic manufactures, and capital which
had been devoted to shipping and foreign commerce was partially absorbed in a rapid growth
of industry (North 1961:56). After 1815,
trade restrictions relaxed and the United States
participated increasingly in the world market
economy.
For the above reasons, from 18071815 virtually no British ceramics or other manufactures
should have reached the United States. After reestablishment of normal relations, British manufacturers dumped older goods on the American
market. Further complicating the matter is that
British manufacturers would also be introducing
many new items and styles that had developed
during the eight-year hiatus. We need to reexamine American site assemblages created by
people who were consumers in the 17931815
period of disruption in trade with Europe and the
decade that followed.
Factors Affecting Time Lag
The variables affecting time lag need much
more research before we understand them. The
48
manufacturing history, transportation history, and

marketing of durable goods all need further
research. In the sections below, the following variables are examined: the introduction
curve, the popularity curve, the curation effect,
the heirloom effect, the frugality effect, and the
hand-me-down effect, among others. In addition, arguably the most important would be life
cycles. Each of these would alter time lag in
different ways.
Popularity of Consumer Goods
and the Effect on Dating Sites
One underlying assumption in using the MCD
and similar ones is that the median date is the
point of maximum popularity for an artifact.
However, everyone should be able to think of
examples in recent history where an item had a
peak of popularity early or late in its manufacture range.
The introduction curve and the popularity
curve must also be given careful consideration.
Every new kind of artifact, every new style
or design takes some time to penetrate the
consumers desire to purchase it. Particularly
in the days before television, market penetration
usually took months or years to achieve significant results. Hence, a product may have a long
introduction curve reflecting the time required for
market penetration. Then, as competing forces
increase, a new products share of the market
diminishes as reflected in its popularity curve.
While every item has a popularity curve, other
variables should be factored in that affect its purchase and use. Until now scholars have viewed
ceramic replacement sequences in terms of one
ware rising in popularity and then falling from
grace to be replaced by another. The effects of
marketing, prices, technology, and availability on
the choices people made have not been taken
into consideration (Miller et al. 1994:244).
George Miller and Robert R. Hunter, Jr., have
examined the popularity curve for shell-edge
wares from 1780 to 1858 (Miller and Hunter
1990). Expressed as a percentage of all tablewares, shell-edge vessels ranged from 3640%
throughout the period, except from 18241830
when they rose to as much as 100% of the
merchant inventories. A gap in data exists from
18311855, however. In the late 1820s, one was
twice as likely to acquire shell edge as in the
preceding 40 years or in the late 1850s. Putting

it another way, shell edge was always a popular
design element in that period, but it reached its
peak in the late 1820s.
Popularity can be a local phenomenon writ
large in broader society as well as vice versa.
What is popular in one country is not necessarily popular in other nations. What is the latest
rage in New England may not play in Peoria.
Cultural conservatism varies by region, occupation, age, and a host of other variables. Garry
Wheeler Stone (1977:55) noted that, based on
probate inventories, it took Boston about 15 years
longer than it did London to adopt porcelain ca.
1721. The popularity of various designs in mortuary art in England was some 50 years ahead
of New England (Deetz and Dethlefsen 1967).
In Cambridge, Massachusetts, the cherub design
occurs earlier than in Boston; 70% of the headstones in Cambridge having cherubs were marking high-status people. By 1730s, the deaths
head popularity was decreasing in Concord (14
miles west of Boston), but the change took place
in 1750s and 1760s just 50 miles away in Plymouth. In rural areas, headstone styles changed
faster than the urban ones, due to religious
change being accepted there earlier too.
When creamware was introduced in the 1760s,
it graced the royal tables of Europe; by the 1780s,
it was losing its popularity to various decorated
pearlwares; and as the 19th century unfolded,
creamware became synonymous with cheapness.
It took at least seven years for creamware to be
marketed in America. Merchant account books
in the Chesapeake region did not list creamware
until 1768, and it took another two years for
it to become common (Miller et al. 1994:228).
If one were dating a British site in Britain, it
makes sense to use the manufacturing range,
perhaps, but not on a British site in America.
As a TPQ date, the full range might be used to
account for someone bringing a set with them
from England. Creamware quickly conquered
European markets and eliminated many earlier
kinds of wares whose potters simply could not
compete (Miller 1984a:23). Indeed, one must
make the analogy of the spread of a species that
is better adapted to the environment and wonder
if creamwares success in the market would later
influence the thinking of Charles Darwin whose
grandfathers were Erasmus Darwin (for whom
Darwinism is named) and Josiah Wedgwood.
The case of the introduction of the vinyl top

in automobiles serves to illustrate the introduction
curve. Vinyl tops first appeared in 1957 as an
option on the Cadillac Eldorado, but it took three
years before they were available on all Cadillacs
and five years before the other divisions of General Motors (Buick, Chevrolet, Pontiac, Oldsmobile) offered vinyl tops (Baker 1978:175).
The introduction curve will vary tremendously
by kind of product, but few manufacturers (other
than perhaps toy manufacturers) can afford to
make huge quantities of an untested product.
Even toy companies underestimate consumer
demand, as shown by the introduction of the
Cabbage Patch Dolls.
The popularity curve of an item begins with its
introduction and ceases when it no longer is manufactured. Some items like Cabbage Patch Dolls
and pet rocks have a steep introduction curve and
drop off equally as steeply. Other things have a
much longer popularity. The curve may exhibit a
normal distribution (the bell-shaped curve), like the
popularity for American Views in transfer-printed
wares (Samford 1997:9). The distribution of any
historical or temporal class exhibits the form of a
unimodal curve through time. The rationale for
this assumption is that any idea or manifestation
of an idea has an inception, a rise in popularity
to a peak, and then a decrease in popularity to
extinction (Dunnell 1970:309).
One of the flaws in using a median in a date
range is that the midpoint in the time range may
not be the midpoint in the production figures.
Cabbage Patch Dolls might still be made 20
years after their introduction, but the vast majority of them probably date from that first year or
two. In addition, some products and styles get
rediscovered by succeeding generations. In the
summer of 1958, the author sported a Mohawk
haircut and later rode around on a skateboard.
The popularity curve for Mohawk haircuts had an
early spike following release of the movie The
Light in the Forest (1958) two decades before
the punk look arrived in London. While skateboards have had an immense popularity among
some youths for the past two decades, they were
popular in an earlier generation as well.
Heirloom Effect
Just because a new ship is commissioned, or
a new house built, or a new town established
49
does not mean that everything in it is newly

purchased. Indeed, after one has put substantial
funds into building a new house, there may be
too little left over to furnish it properly. All one
need do to understand this is to examine ones
own household inventory and see how accurately
that inventory would reflect the site in which
one lives. A new household may have all new
items as wedding gifts or it may have heirlooms
as well as older items bought at yard sales or
acquired as gifts from relatives and friends, the
result of frugality and generosity.
One must be careful not to impose upon the
past modern American views about acquiring
new things and disposing of old. Many would
have viewed a serviceable axe or cooking pot as
a valuable gift, even if used. Indeed, if it has
the patina of antiquity, it might have been especially valued. In the medieval family of 17thcentury America, heirlooms played an important
role in the social identity of the family heritage
and honor, as evidenced by probate inventories
(Beaudry 1980:5052; McCracken 1988; Pendery
1992). This prestige coming from the patina of
antiquity diminished in the early-18th century as
consumerism began to develop.
Leaving aside museums and collectors, the
normal household may contain heirlooms many
generations old. The author owns eight ceramic
vessels bought during the 18201840 period by
his ancestors and handed down through seven
generations. This is not all that unusual. If
these ceramics were to become part of the
archaeological record, they would be easily
spotted as heirloom, but what if they had been
broken in the 1890s? In 1972, the author
stopped at a small town drugstore in eastern
Washington and bought a dozen bottles dating
from the 1920s with the original contents, label,
and box. These had been found in the attic and
were being sold at the original price! Things
end up in warehouses and stores and stay there
until sold or discarded. In Oregon a general
store was closed and boarded up on the day its
owner received notice of his only sons death in
Vietnam. What eventually became its contents?
Frugality Effect
Sometimes time lag has been recognized but
explained narrowly on the basis of socioeconomic
factors, like poverty. We need to be careful in
50
using concepts like poverty as the explanation for

why older, probably second-hand, items appear in
a household inventory. It is difficult or impossible to ascertain via the archaeological record
if used items were acquired as gifts from some
benefactor, salvaged from trash, or purchased at
a second-hand market. While the frugality effect
is often linked to poverty, the behavior itself cuts
across economic classes. The author once knew
a wealthy businessman who rummaged through
the office trash salvaging paper that he cut and
glued into memo pads, long before recycling
became fashionable.
The frugality effect in general would be most
obvious by an archaeological assemblage with a
high ratio of patterns to vessels, indicating that
individual pieces were being acquired instead of
whole sets. Gaw (1975) noted such a situation
with the ceramics from Silcott.
Hand-Me-Down Effect
Used items, if still usable for something, are
valued in most societies. In the American materialistic, modern world, some may turn up noses
at being offered a used item, but most people
in the world are grateful for such gifts. The
hand-me-down effect of giving used items to
someone who can find a use for them prolongs
the lifespan of specific objects. In other words,
a particular plate may be discarded from one
household but remain in the system. Few people
throw away still useful things. They sell them,
give to friends and relatives, or give to charities
(with tax advantages included).
Curation Effect
Another consideration is the curation value to
a household. Expensive breakable items, like
porcelain, would likely have been much more
highly curated than other items in the household. Today, if we have an everyday set of
dishes and a good set for company, that good
set has a higher curation value. Items with high
curation value will appear less frequently in the
archaeological record. These items are used less
frequently, stored in more protected locations, and
handled more carefully.
Items may have a higher curation value
during the early part of the introduction curve
simply because they are new, have a certain
prestige value, and may be hard to replace. As

their popularity decreases, their curation value
decreases as well. How many people in the
past decided that they wanted the new style
and so subconsciously changed their views of the
curation value of their existing chinaware? Such
a situation would cause them to be a little less
careful handling their old set and increase the
likelihood of a piece being broken. While one
may have good manufacturing dates for items,
the delays caused by the time needed to have
market penetration and inherent aspects of curation must be considered, for these factors will
affect how soon items will reach the archaeological record.
The cultural use patterns of the eighteenth century
were such that not long after ceramic types arrive in
the home in a town or frontier fort, breakage began to
occur. The broken ceramic types were discarded and
older types broken along with the most recent acquisitions resulted in a number of types becoming associated
in the midden deposits. Although a few heirloom pieces
would be broken along with a few of the most recent
acquisitions, the majority of the fragments would represent those most in use during the occupation of the site
[emphasis added] (South 1972:77; 1977:206).
The above comment focuses on probability.

The more an item is used, the higher the probability it will become worn or broken (Bartovics
1981). Leaving aside aspects of different fragility, higher curational care, and other factors for
the moment, the everyday ceramic plate used
three meals per day is 20 times more likely
to break as the expensive plate used only for
Sunday dinner. What is not factored into this
use and breakage probability is the selection process by which ceramics and other artifacts arrive
in the household in the first place.
South noted that the manufacturing date ranges
in 17th-century wares were longer than in 18thcentury wares (South 1977:204):
For this reason a comparison of manufacture dates with
site occupation may well reveal less correlation than
such a comparison made with data from eighteenthcentury sites. We might at first be inclined to interpret
this discrepancy as a time lag phenomenon, and indeed
some time lag may well be involved in that, with less
use of ceramics in the lower class seventeenth-century
homes, less breakage would naturally be expected to
occur, resulting perhaps in a greater percentage of
older ceramic types finding their way into the midden
deposits. In the upper class homes, however, we would
expect more ceramics and a closer correlation between
manufacture dates and site occupation dates due to more
frequent use of ceramics in the home.
Ceramics were less common in the 17th century because other materials like pewter and wood
were used for tableware vessels. The industrialization of the ceramic industry in England
occurred in the mid-18th century. South implies
that poorer people will curate ceramics better than
richer people will in the 17th century because they
can less afford to replace these items. However,
he dismisses time lag in wealthier homes due to
their ability to replace their broken ceramics. This
bears further research.
Life Cycle Effect
Biologists define life cycle as
Progressive series of changes undergone by an organism
or lineal succession of organisms, from fertilization to
death, or to the death of that stage producing the
gametes that begin an identical series of changes. In
vertebrates this would simply be from union of gametes
to death of the resulting individual; but in many plants
and animals there is a succession of individuals, with
sexual or asexual reproduction connecting them, in the
entire cycle, e.g. in flukes (Abercrombie et al. 1962:
131132).
The biological concept of life cycle is an

important one to use in understanding the
archaeological site. Each person goes through a
life cycle from birth to death, and this is done
in conjunction with other people who are also
going through their life cycles. The biological
model fails us, sensu stricto, because of culture.
Humans are not simply biological organisms,
trapped in a cycle of biological reproduction that,
once achieved, relegates us to the bone pile. In
humans, prolonged childhood and adolescence is
needed to ensure sufficient knowledge is transmitted for survival of the offspring. Once offspring
are no longer produced and those offspring have
been raised to adulthood, the human life cycle
should end, if biology were casting the only vote.
However, humans tend to live in three (or even
four) generation families. From an evolutionary
perspective, this extension would occur only if
such a situation increased the survival of the
offspring and, hence, the species. The grandparent generation provides valuable knowledge,
and it is in the grandparentgrandchild interaction that much enculturation takes place.
51
Families go through a life cycle too. The

family life cycle divides the family experience
into phases, or stages, over the lifespan and
seeks to describe changes in family structure
and function during each stage. The cycle can
also be used to show the challenges, tasks, and
problems that people face during each stage as
well as the satisfactions derived (Rice 1990:
242243). In the 1990s, the average American
male married at 26, beginning at age 28 had
children (eventually two), was an empty nester
from 50 to retirement at 65, and died at age
72. The average American female married at
24, beginning at age 26 had two children, was
an empty nester from 48 to retirement at 65,
spent four years in retirement with her husband
before he died, and entered widowhood, from
69 to 79 (Bureau of the Census 1994).
The life cycle of a household reveals the
way it changed through time. A domestic
archaeological site results from the interaction
of a family or household with their environment. A family must contain more than one
generation, by definition, so it does not always
equate with the household. A household may
contain a single person or several families, all
living together. Hence, the household is a more
useful construct for archaeologists to use as a
unit of study. Nevertheless, the concepts of
the family lurk in the background. Households
have a lifespan in any given location. They
may continue more or less unchanged at a different location with some adaptations to a new
environmental setting.
In terms of their human occupation, sites
have a lifespan, too, because different people
value the locations environmental factors. If
a site is occupied more than once, archaeologists call each occupation a component. These
components may represent a short-term campsite or a house occupied for centuries. In the
latter case, the house may have been occupied
by a single household evolving through time,
or serial households, one after the other. The
impact of those two scenarios on the archaeological site will differ, both in site features and
in the material record.
Each person has a vision of a life ahead and
plans accordingly; this has been called the trajectory of life (Pattison 1977). A person makes
certain assumptions about how long they will
live, based upon their family history, their own
52
health, threats of war, pestilence, and so forth,

and then endeavor to live that life script. In
light of new facts, they modify their life script.
Historical archaeologists need to recognize
this factor, for it greatly influences what might
or might not be constructed at any given site.
For example, take identical twin brothers, living
on adjacent farms. Both wish to pass to their
respective children a substantial inheritance.
The optimist twin thinks he will live another
50 years. So, he takes a conservative approach
and slowly builds his wealth. The pessimist
twin thinks he has only 20 years to accomplish
the same goal, so he takes greater risks. That
these life strategies will have different impacts
upon the archaeological record seem certain, but
predicting just what that might be is difficult.
The pessimist twin might immediately put all his
capital into new machinery, thoroughbred pigs, or
the purchase of an adjacent property. Failing to
keep a sufficient reserve, he could lose everything in an emergency if he were overextended
financially. Conversely, he could have timed
his investment perfectly to changes in the local
economy and had the right equipment on hand
to undertake an expansion. The more conservative approach taken by the twin who thinks he
will live 50 years more might see him not being
able to adapt to sudden market changes, or he
may survive adverse conditions by not being
overextended. The point of this example is to
explore the issues of how in otherwise similar
people different trajectories of life may affect
acquisition of material things.
For the plantations at Kings Bay, Georgia,
Adams (1987b:313) concluded that when a planter
died, the success of the plantation after that death
is affected by the age of the manager who inherits the administration of the plantation and his or
her role in its founding. If the next generation
had been adults when the plantation was founded,
they had likely acquired the knowledge necessary
to its success, whereas if they were children at the
founding, they acquired less knowledge.
Fashion Effect
Wealthy households could more easily afford to
replace their tableware at a faster rate than could
a poor family. Their toleration of chipped vessels
might be less, if they have the wealth to replace
such items. Furthermore, the dictates of society
might necessitate such expenditure so as to maintain the appearance of wealth. Of perhaps more
importance was the issue of fashion. As Christopher Espenshade (2000, pers. comm.) wrote:
Ostentatious display, being modern Brits, was a major
cultural phenomenon in the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries. The Draytons (at Drayton Hall) did not settle
for out-of-style ceramics. They spent good money to
get the most current fashion. A review of advertisements from early newspapers will show that items were
often advertised as the newest trend and the latest
pattern. In a segment of society that placed great
value on displaying their civility, taste, and progressiveness, new ceramic styles were probably purchased
shortly after their first production, and may have been
discarded well before their functionality ceased.
Before the American Revolution, maintaining

ties with Mother England was important, while
afterward being American was more important.
The Staffordshire potteries responded after the
War of 1812 to a specifically American market
with American Views transfer prints (Samford 1997) and ironstones. While poorer folk
likely noticed the latest fashions, they could not
afford to be changing tableware patterns just to
keep in vogue. Variations through time in how
people responded to changing fashions should
be expected. While historical archaeology has
become more democratic in its research base, the
excavation of wealthy households has affected the
published literature disproportionately. Had poor
or middle-class households predominated in the
archaeological literature, the amount of time lag
might have been much more visible.
Set Effect
Many people today were brought up using
a set of tableware that included dinner plate,
salad/dessert/bread plate, bowl, cup, and saucer,
so the tendency is to think this has always been
the case. The modern tableware set did not exist
until the latter half of the 19th century. The
way vessels were made affected how they could
be designed. Cups were thrown, while plates
were pressed. Until the 1830s, one could rarely
match a tea service with a table service, except
in plain creamware. People bought tea sets separately from table sets and used them differently
as well (Miller et al. 1994:241244).
Because tea wares and tablewares were
purchased and used separately, chronological
differences in long-term assemblages should

be expected. These should vary according to
the individual families at each site. A family
who participated in the tea ceremony only on
high occasions might have one tea set that
lasted a very long time, while an identical set
in the household of a social butterfly would
be many times more likely to be broken and
replaced more quickly, especially so if fashion
consciousness is factored in as well.
Dumping Effect
As noted earlier, it is expected that following periods of international upheavals like the
Napoleonic Wars, the War of 1812, and the
Civil War, for example, manufacturers and
merchants had built up stocks of merchandise,
which were then dumped on the market. It did
not take major economic upheavals, though, for
goods to be dumped. Production will out step
demand for many reasons. In goods with short
popularity curves, a factory may just be reaching optimal production at the point when demand
lessens. Prior to electronic communication like
the telegraph and before marketing studies began,
a factory could be producing at peak levels for
months or years before word reached the managers that demand was down, and they acted upon
that information.
In a preindustrial setting, production levels
probably mirrored demand levels fairly closely.
However, one of the hallmarks of industrial
production is one of increased efficiency and,
therefore, higher production levels. Mass production meant mass marketing, and with increased
quantities of consumer goods flooding the market
came the potential for shorter periods of popularity. This increased the risks for production.
The recipients of dumping by manufacturers
are those least able to exercise choice. Dumping
is not necessarily bad, for it might be accompanied by price reductions. The more peripheral
the customers were in participating in mainstream
fashions, the easier dumping would be. When
Josiah Wedgwood found in 1767 that he could
not sell some out-of-style wares in Europe, he
instructed his partner Thomas Bentley to dump
them on the then unimportant American market
(Miller et al. 1994:221). The idea must have
been that the colonials would not know these
wares were no longer nouveau styles or would
53
be so eager to buy that they would not care.

The American colonies were an insignificant
market for the British potters until after the War
of 1812, but the market quickly grew to as much
as 50% of British production by 1860. With the
embargo of British ceramics brought on by the
Civil War, Britain had to turn to other markets
like Australia. Protected by that embargo, the
American pottery industry expanded its production, and Britain never regained its ascendancy
again there. The American market was an
increasingly affluent and populous one. A key
facet in capturing this market may well have
been the dumping of ceramics after the cessation of the War of 1812.
Prior to the War of 1812, ceramics and other manufactured goods were imported with merchants capital or
credit. Merchants, in turn, dealt directly with customers, often extending credit to them. A major change
occurred as a result of the War of 1812, during which
large quantities of English goods were warehoused for
shipment to the United States in anticipation of peace.
Eager to move goods out of the warehouses, many
manufacturers shipped directly to commission merchants
rather than await specific orders from customers. In
ports like New York, these goods were auctioned off,
undermining to an extent the regular merchant importer.
Often the auction prices were even lower than the
merchants wholesale price to the country trade (Miller
1984a:4).
Rural Effect
Although the majority of the population was
rural in the early-19th century, their economic
power as consumers was limited by the distribution system supplying country merchants.
Those merchants were not organized and had to
rely upon a hierarchy of middle persons to provide their merchandise. Country general stores
stocked limited quantities and limited varieties
of goods because, in part, most customers were
farmers who realized an income but once a
year and had to be carried on credit the rest of
the year (Clark 1944; Carson 1965; Applebaum
and Cohen 1970; Atherton 1971; Cleland 1983;
Adams and Smith 1985).
While country people may well have been
more conservative than their city brethren in
many aspects of life, when it comes to consumption of market goods how much control did
they have? This depends upon the time period
and location. In the 17th century, the wealth of
54
individuals was probably more important than

whether they lived in an urban or rural location
along the Atlantic seaboard. Access to consumer
goods should not have been exceptionally different. However, the further the penetration
westward into the piedmont and mountains, the
more important the transportation and distribution
networks became. Until steamboats and railroads
linked the expanding frontier to the nations and
worlds industries, consumer goods took time to
reach their customers.
Frontier merchants relied upon agents in
distant Eastern cities to provide most or all of
their merchandise. Prior to the War of 1812,
these agents imported directly from the manufacturers using their own capital and assuming
risks of breakage and loss at sea (Miller 1984b).
They would place specific orders for particular
items to be made. With the postwar development of the auctions of imported goods sent
by manufacturers at their risk, a competitor to
these importers developed, the jobber. Jobbers
bought the auction goods, often at substantially
reduced prices due to dumping of overproduced
items. Importing agents continued to meet the
demand for quality and fashion, while jobbers
supplied the masses. This is a bit oversimplified, for importers would have brought in lower
quality items too, while jobbers might obtain
quality items. However, in terms of choices,
jobbers had much more limited options and this,
in turn, affected their customers. In general,
then, jobbers probably dealt more with cheaper
wares and specialized in wholesaling to country merchants. Importers also wholesaled to the
country trade but were probably more commonly
involved in retail and carried a wider range of
wares (Miller 1984b:41).
After 1815, then, rural merchants likely
would have been served increasingly by jobbers
who bought at auctions what the manufacturers sent. Rural sites should, therefore, have a
higher potential for experiencing the vagaries
of manufacturers dumping overproduction and
out-of-date goods. Because of shipping costs,
such rural merchants would not be in a position to return those goods. If the items were
unpopular, the merchants would sell at a loss.
Those merchants and their customers were at
the tail end of a distribution system in which
others were preselecting what they could choose
to purchase based upon auction prices in the big

Eastern cities.
Rural sites should have a greater length of
time lag for all artifacts, based upon the shipping distances and time as well as the change in
the import system from merchant to manufacturer
capital discussed above.
Examples of the Time Lag Effect
A number of sites in which significant amounts
of time lag for ceramic artifacts have been noted
(Table 4) were examined. Many of these studies
used the MCD method, which had already partially absorbed time lag in some of the ceramic
types. So, the real amount of time lag is potentially even greater than presented.
Salwen and Bridges (1977) produced a study
that examined dating methods in historical archaeology. They attributed the propensity of dating
sites at particular points in time as opposed to
acknowledging occupation spans as originating
from the fact that most historical archaeologists
in the mid-1970s were retread prehistorians who
do not think in units of less than a century or
so. Given the complex depositional patterns
produced by various combinations of these factors, no single date of occupation can contribute much to our understanding of the nature of
most historical strata or features, and the dates of
occupation arrived at through the manipulation of
information about the dates of manufacture of the
objects found within them are likely to contribute
even less (Salwen and Bridges 1977:166). As
Charles E. Cleland expressed it, we can think of
few cultural or historical problems where even a
documented mean date would be as valuable as
a less accurate estimate of span of occupancy
(Cleland 1972:185).
Different products should vary in their lengths
of time lag due to shelf life and styles of usage.
Thus far, only one such study has looked at this
aspect of time lag. In her study of the Edgewood
Dump (19081912) in Atlanta, Georgia, Sarah H.
Hill examined time lag by comparing different
functional types of bottles (Hill 1982:319323).
For comparative data, Hill supposedly used the
published data from Silcott (Adams et al. 1975),
but in the six tables of data she presented, the
artifact frequencies are wrong in 23 out of 47
instances, and she miscalculated the median dates
numerous times (Adams 1983). Despite this, an
55
TABLE 4
CERAMIC TIME LAG AT VARIOUS SITES
Site
Nauvoo
Charles Towne
H.M.S. Orpheus
Silcott: Bill Wilsons Store
Silcott: Weiss Ranch Dump 88A
Silcott: Weiss Ranch Dump 88B
Fort Independence, SC
Burr House
Kings Bay Plantation: Planter
Kings Bay Plantation: Slave A
Kings Bay Plantation: Slave B
Kings Bay Plantation: Slave C
Kings Bay Plantation: Slave D
Yaughan and Curriboo
Fort Walla Walla Trench 1*
Fort Walla Walla Trench 2/7*
Fort Walla Walla Trench WWCC *
Ozark area sites
Fort Independence, A
Fort Independence, B
Ceramic Lag
20
1626
25
921*
1226*
1620*
1624
2932
none
18
15
40
23
15
411
123
1117
1525
21
18
Source
Dollar 1968:16
South 1972:90
Turnbaugh and Turnbaugh 1977:91
Bastian 1982:140141
Deetz 1977
Adams et al. 1987:164
Adams 1987a:195
Adams 1987a:195
Adams 1987a:195
Adams 1987a:195
Wheaton et al. 1983:337
Riordan 1985:102115
Riordan 1985:102115
Riordan 1985:102115
Price 1979:21
* includes 4.5 years for glass artifact time lag based on Riordan 1985
examination of time lag using various functional

criteria along similar lines could be worthwhile.
Shipwrecks provide important time capsules,
and this is especially true for merchant ships
lost with cargoes of durable goods. In the hold
of the Civil War blockade-runner Mary Bowers,
several polychrome painted pearlware vessels
were recovered. These ceramics dated from
ca. 18151835, but the vessel sank in 1864, so
these ceramics were between 29 and 49 years
old when they were shipped from some London
warehouse. In this case, an overstocked warehouse sent outdated wares to customers from the
South eager to have any consumer goods. In the
case of the Mary Bowers, the ceramic time lag
of 29 years (minimum) would have been particularly impressive had the ship not sunk, for
the 29 years is only the T1aT1c portion. By
the time those ceramics were used, broken, and
discarded, it could have been the late 1880s or
early 1890s and later. Such a long time period
between manufacture and discard should be
expected for a few vessels on any site with a
long occupation period, due to heirlooms finally
being broken. Eventually, all things become part

of the archaeological record.
Another ship, the H.M.S. Orpheus, had a similar amount of time lag for its ceramics. Commissioned in 1773 and sunk in 1778, the ships
ceramics had a mean ceramic date of 1754
(Turnbaugh and Turnbaugh 1977:91):
This unexpectedly large inconsistency was also reflected
in other datable artifact categories, such as armaments,
and has resulted in three possible explanations that are
not necessarily mutually exclusive. First, the Revolutionary War may have stretched the resources of the
Royal Navy, necessitating the use of older equipment
and supplies by 1778. Second, surplus military and
domestic accoutrements from the Seven Years War
with France between 1756 and 1763 may have been
used in the new engagement. Third, individuals may
have brought aboard their own table settings, mugs, and
chamber pots, among other personal possessions. These
ceramics could have been older or cast-off household
wares due to such factors as potential breakage at sea
and the vagaries of the wartime situation.
Since the ship was commissioned in 1773 and

was likely outfitted then, the first explanation is
not likely in this case. The war surplus factor
56
and the personal factor are both likely contributors to the apparent time lag of 24 years for the
H.M.S. Orpheus ceramics. The actual time lag
is probably greater, however, because the mean
ceramic dating formula (South 1972, 1977) incorporated time lag into the artifact time ranges
stipulated. Because the ship sank so soon after
being launched, that 24-year time lag is a minimal one; those artifacts would have been used
for many years more had the ship not sunk.
At Fort Independence, a Revolutionary War
fort in South Carolina, Beverly E. Bastian (1982:
140141) examined the artifact collection in light
of the Adams and Gaw study at Silcott. Using
the MCD, she had derived a mean median date
of 1747, an interpreted median occupation date
of 1755.4, and an historical median date of 1771.
This yielded a difference of 16 and 24 years
between the historic date and those interpretive
dates. She explained this discrepancy as being a
result of the scarcity of English ceramics available during the American Revolution. However,
a better explanation is time lag.
At a different Fort Independence in Boston,
Massachusetts, the initial dates for Structures A
and B were 1803 based on historical sources,
while the mean initial ceramic dates were 1782
and 1785, a difference of 21 and 18 years respectively (Turnbaugh and Turnbaugh 1977:92).
Short-term occupations present special difficulties in assessing time lag. Fort Watson was a
British fort in South Carolina, lasting only four
months in early 1781. Leland G. Ferguson used
Souths MCD formula on fragments to produce
a date of 1778.2. Several types of ceramics
(annular pearlware, lighter colored creamware,
feather edged, Royal patterns) found at the site
dated a decade after the fort was destroyed, if
the MCD were used. Ferguson concluded that
the site did not have a later occupation, and
that, therefore, these ceramics were in the colonies much earlier than recognized. Given that
this was a British fort, would it not have been
supplied from Britain and, hence, have then current kinds of ceramics? Ferguson recalculated
the MCD and derived a date of 1777. This is
not a time lag of only four years because the
MCD incorporated time lag to some unknown
degree. What is needed now is to re-examine
the Fort Watson material using vessel count and
the real manufacturing dates to ascertain the real
time lag for the site.
The hand-me-down effect has been used as an

explanation for archaeological assemblages. For
example, at the Burr House at Parting Ways in
Plymouth, Massachusetts, James Deetz found
sherds with an MCD in the mid-1790s, not
the 18221825 date he expected. He explained
this discrepancy as the result of the poor black
inhabitants having acquired used ceramics (Deetz
1977). While that may have contributed to the
length of time lag, social status alone is probably
insufficient as an explanation.
On slave sites, researchers have also found that
MCDs were too early but, like Deetzs interpretation for Parting Ways, attributed the difference
to being the result of hand-me-downs (Fairbanks
1974:82). At Yaughan and Curriboo plantations,
researchers found a 15-year difference between
the one site mean based on historical sources
and ceramic bracketing and the MCD. Such
a great amount of time lag is easily explained
if the datable ceramics represent items discarded
by the owner after a normal use-life and then
reused by the slaves for an additional use-life
(Wheaton et al. 1983:337). The trend in thinking is obvious: people who are poor, especially
slaves, have older materials because these were
cast-off items. While that is no doubt true in
some cases, poor people also need to take more
care at curating their things, for they have less
economic ability to replace items. Hence, they
may be more likely to have a variety of mismatched things dating from earlier times than
their contemporary, more affluent neighbors.
In coastal Georgia, at the Kings Bay Plantation slave cabins, the mean initial ceramic dates
(using vessel count, not fragment count) for the
four cabins most likely built in 1791 (when the
plantation was started) were 1773.2, 1775.7,
1751.2, and 1767.6 with a grouped mean of
1769.2 and, thus, a lag of 22 years in relation
to the known historical date (Table 5) (Adams
1987a:195). By comparison, the planter ceramic
assemblage at the Kings Bay Plantation had a
mean initial ceramic date of 1792.3 at a site
also constructed in 1791 (Adams et al. 1987:
164). Does the close match of the planters
ceramic assemblage date to the known historical
beginning of the plantation, accompanied by the
fact that the slaves ceramic assemblage dated a
generation earlier have further meaning? Did the
planter, soon after arrival, give his old ceramics to the slaves upon purchase of a new set of
57
TABLE 5
TIME LAG AT KINGS BAY
Planter
Cabin A
Cabin B
Cabin C
Cabin D
Cabin
Average
Mean Initial
Mean of Means
Mean Terminal
1792.3
1817.1
1834.2
1773.2
1799.4
1819.7
1775.7
1798.6
1821.8
1751.2
1781.0
1810.7
1767.6
1792.9
1818.5
1769.2
1794.9
1818.5
Earliest Initial
Latest Terminal
1670
1900
1670
1875
1670
1875
1670
1840
1670
1850
1670
1875
Earliest Terminal
Latest Initial
1775
1834
1775
1826
1791
1815
1775
1815
1791
1815
1775
1826
Initial Historic
Midpoint Historic
Terminal Historic
1791
1821
1851
1791
1803
1815
1791
1803
1815
1791
1803
1815
1791
1803
1815
1791
1803
1815
Difference Initial
Difference Mean
Difference Terminal
+1.3
-3.9
-16.8
-17.8
-3.6
+4.7
-15.3
-4.4
+6.8
-39.8
-22.0
-4.3
-23.4
-10.1
+3.5
-24.1
-10.0
+2.7
Planter
183A
Planter
183C
Slave
183D
Sawyer
182
Planter
194A
Slave
194B
Mean Initial
Mean of Means
Mean Terminal
1785.5
1805.2
1821.3
1786.0
1809.1
1828.1
1785.6
1806.6
1836.4
1782.5
1800.3
1818.6
1793.8
1814.5
1831.3
1799.8
1820.2
1839.3
Earliest Initial
Latest Terminal
1670
1845
1670
1845
1720
1875
1775
1795
1750
1890
1756
1890
Earliest Terminal
Latest Initial
1775
1820
1775
1820
1775
1820
1815
1845
1815
1828
1815
1830
Initial Historic
Midpoint Historic
Terminal Historic
1792.8
1808.7
1823
1792.8
1808.7
1823
1792.8
1808.7
1823
1801
1803
1805
1793
1812.5
1832
1793
1812.5
1832
Difference Initial
Difference Mean
Difference Terminal
-6.5
-3.5
-1.7
-6.8
+0.4
+5.1
-7.2
-2.1
+13.4
-17.5
-3.0
+13.6
+0.8
+2.0
-0.7
+6.8
+7.5
+7.3
tableware? This is a valid explanation for the

observed facts. However, equally plausible is
that the slaves themselves bought used ceramics
with the money they earned from selling their
garden produce, flocks, and handicrafts to nearby
plantations or the town markets. We must be
careful not to assume a paternalistic system
existed. Slaves earned money and participated
in the market system.
In another study, Diana DiZerega Wall (1999:
112113) examined four mid-19th-century ceramic
assemblages in terms of socioeconomic class and
concluded, the variability among the assemblages
is better explained by differences in class, rather
than by differences in time. Wall discussed an

assemblage from Washington Square, with a TPQ
date of 1857 and related her discussion of this
assemblage to the 1850s context, yet Benjamin
and Eliza Robson lived on this property from
1841 until sometime in the 1870s (apparently).
With a TPQ date of 1857, these ceramics and
the other associated material were likely still
being used in the 1870s when Benjamin Robson
died. The discussion related to the period of the
ceramic usage, but Wall used the manufacturing
date TPQ of 1857 to arbitrarily limit this period
to the 1850s. The argument advanced here is
that the real use period is much longer.
58
Although as seen above, relatively few

researchers have tried to quantify time lag,
many more recognize it is an issue needing to
be addressed seriously. Recent research (Adams
and Gaw 1977; Hill 1982) indicates that artifacts
are deposited some years after their manufacture
date and that the weighted mean dates may
not represent mean deposition dates. However,
when an assemblage is deposited over a number
of years rather than all at one time, the complicated relationship between a weighted mean date
and the effect of deposition lag on that date has
not been addressed in the literature (Cheek and
Friedlander 1990:42). Whether a site is occupied
for a long period of time or a short one, time
lag will normally be a significant factor in the
proper interpretation of any assemblage.
Patricia M. Samford provided a study for
dating transfer-printed wares in which she recognized that manufacture and use dates were not
the same thing:
Researchers using this dating tool should keep in mind
that the dates provided in this paper are dates of peak
production of specific motifs, colors, or engraving techniques. Ceramics found in archaeological contexts will
have a use-span that will need to be considered during
analysis. Future research could address the question of
how production date ranges correlate with date ranges
for use of ceramic items (Samford 1997:25).
Unlike prehistoric sites and the ethnographic

examples provided earlier, the occupants of most
historic sites did not manufacture the artifacts
found there. Thus, the dates of manufacture
have little to do with the site date directly and
must be further interpreted. The manufacture
dates are not the dates of use or deposit but are
simply points in time to be used as reference
points within a broader and far more sophisticated examination of the life history of the
artifact. Without knowing the historical context
and each artifacts life history, the archaeologist
risks committing two formal fallacies of logic:
the fallacy of reduction and the fallacy of the
mean. In the first instance, the material possessions of living people are reduced to numbers to
be manipulated. In the second, the archaeologist averages those numbers to produce a mean.
While the use of quantitative research has its
place, it must be recognized that archaeologists
sometimes misuse statistics, especially regarding
what is a sufficient sample size. Their sample
sizes are usually meaninglessly small from the

standpoint of a statistician. The purpose of
statistics is basically to determine if what the
numbers reveal could not, mathematically, simply
be the result of random factors, that is, that the
results are nonrandom and, therefore, patterned
by human action. Most statistical usage in
archaeology, however, seems destined to prove
what is already patently obvious.
Time Lag and Other Artifact Classes:
Wine Bottles
Today, wine bottles are viewed as a disposable item, but in the 19th century and before,
they had such sufficient value that their owners
names were marked on them. Bottles were
embossed with glass seals into which an individuals initials were impressed; presumably, this
was done to ease identification during refilling.
Thus, bottles with seals would have been used
over and over again. How would this affect the
amount of time lag for those bottles? Archaeologists are well aware that wine bottles may be
cellared for varying periods of time (Jones 1986).
Fewer know the extent of the recycling of glass
in the 18th and 19th centuries (Busch 1987).
Recycling of glass bottles and many other
products is as old as the manufacture of those
items. Between 1804 and 1839, Americans
imported 93,557,664 empty black-glass quart
bottles, an average of 2,598,768 bottles per
year (Adams 1992). These bottles had been
filled in Europe and consumed abroad. They
came not only as intentional cargo but also as
ballast from China, Africa, Europe, and every
major port in the world. The empties would
be collected and placed on ships as ballast. At
the next port, they might be washed, refilled,
cellared awhile, and then emptied again. The
process could be repeated for decades before
the bottle was broken. Thus, bottles must be
used very cautiously when dating a site. If
it is assumed that the bottle was made, filled,
shipped, contents consumed, and then discarded,
very likely the assumption would be wrong in
many cases, especially in the mid-19th century
and before. In the 18th century, with slower
transportation and bottles made by hand, bottles
were extensively recycled and reused. Today in
America most bottles are made, used, and discarded in a very short time frame, although a
year or two may still elapse. During the 19th

and early-20th centuries, the development of the
glass and transportation industries led to bottles
changing from valued reusable items to disposable worthless items.
Import figures for the United States from
before, during, and after the War of 1812 suggest that British bottle makers may have kept
their production at about the same level from
1806 onward, even though few of these bottles
could then be exported to the United States.
However, to recapture the American market and
help recoup their losses, the glassmakers dumped
large quantities at cheap prices immediately after
the war. Thus, American archaeological assemblages should contain an especially high number
of 18091815 bottles that did not reach America
until 1815 and later.
At Raleigh Tavern in Williamsburg, Nol Hume
(1969) found wine bottles reused to make cherry
cordial. These were buried next to the tavern
and then apparently forgotten. If these black
quart bottles were made in Europe and shipped
(full or empty) to the colonies where they were
recycled, it could add many extra years of time
lag. Bottles made in the 1810s may not be discarded until the 1830s or much later.
At the Kings Bay Plantation, 1780s wine
bottles (broken and no longer usable) and wine
goblets dating from the late 1790s were found in
a privy filled ca. 18051810 (Adams et al. 1987:
158160). During the analysis, it was noted that
the bottles were substantially scratched all over
the body and that the bases clearly were worn,
looking as if someone had used sandpaper on
them. At the time, this was attributed to the
wear from shipping, although that explanation
seemed insufficient. In retrospect, some of
those bottles must have had several voyages
to get so worn. Perhaps clues from ceramic
analysis (Griffiths 1978) should be taken to try
to quantify this wear.
At Wormslow Plantation, wine bottles dating
17351760 were found in the trash pits postdating 1770 (Kelso 1979:95); this would be
a time lag of 1035 years. In Williamsburg,
the well at the John Custis house contained
bottles 20 years earlier than the other artifacts
(Nol Hume 1974:188). In a trash pit dated
17631772 at the Rosewell house, the bottles
dated 17251750 yielded a time lag of 1338
years (Nol Hume 1962:172).
59
Wine bottles clearly have some serious

problems when it comes to using them to date
an archaeological assemblage. Not only did they
sit for years in a cellar maturing the wine, but
they may have done this repeatedly and traveled
the world doing so. A French wine bottle may
have been sent to Egypt, consumed there, sent as
ballast to Australia and again as ballast to China,
filled there, and wandered its way back to France
or America. What stories a wine bottle might
tell! Could pollen be recovered from the finish
or pontil mark?
Discussion
In virtually all of the sites examined here, it
can be demonstrated that ceramic lifespan is long
and certainly extends well beyond the end dates
for manufacture of a particular type (Table 4).
With a few notable exceptions, an overall consistency of about 1525 years exists between the
manufacturing and the disposal date of ceramic
artifacts. In several of the sites, the upper range
is more than 30 years. The remarkable aspect
of these figures is that the ceramic dates were
derived using different methods on the various
projects and despite that, the overall view is
the same. Roughly, a generation separates the
manufacturing and purchase of these ceramics
and their disposal. The notable exceptions consist of the planters site at the Kings Bay Plantation in which the ceramic date was slightly later
than the historically known start of the plantation in 1791. From this, it could be deduced
that the planter bought all new tableware when
he moved his family from Jamaica to Georgia.
The other exception was at Fort Walla Walla,
where the ceramic time lag was considerably
shorter than all others. It is the only site in
this analysis that had been supplied by the U.S.
Army Quartermaster. Clearly, something is skewing the assemblage. Perhaps a large shipment of
ceramics was broken and dumped here. This is
but one more reason why the analysis of time
lag is an essential aspect of any site analysis,
for it provides a base for comparison with other
sites and insight into the behavior of the people
occupying any given site.
Dumping of surplus material by British glassmakers has been suggested for bottles made just
before and during the War of 1812 and this
has been clearly demonstrated for the ceramics
60
aboard the Mary Bowers. Durable items sit in

warehouses awaiting sale. Consumers in the
South during the Civil War were not in a position to argue with merchants to obtain the latest
ceramic fashions and were forced to accept
outdated merchandise. Hence, it is expected
that many sites exist in the South that were
built in the 18501870 period but that contain
18101830 ceramics, due to dumping by British
merchants.
In their analyses of archaeological assemblages, archaeologists must be aware that such
practices were a common part of doing business, then as now. In addition, wars, changes
in duty, and economic turmoil such as the Panic
of 1837 all affected the ability of merchants to
ship their goods to market in a timely fashion.
These factors and others mean that artifacts have
a periodicity of availability. Through historical
research, it could be demonstrated that a certain
British ceramic pattern or makers mark dates,
say, 1808 to 1815, but in the reality of the
market situation, that ceramic would only have
been imported to the United States in 1808 or
after 1815. That particular pattern might have
been in too high demand to supply the British
domestic market in 1808; so few pieces might
have been exported. Then after the war, many
were exported. While the date range would be
18081815 in England, it would be 1815 and
later in America. Manufacturing dates may be
accurately researched, but they must be placed
into an historical context.
The obvious conclusion is that the better control
one has on the dates of the wares, the better chance
we will have on establishing the time lag between
manufacture and discard. The second point is clearly
the old data are suspect because the field is rapidly
progressing. More reports should have the level of
detail that was provided in the Silcott report so that
those who want to use the data in the future will have
easier access to it. Too many CRM reports and site
collection inventories by the National Park Service
have appendices that are unusable because they have
only minimal detail. Far too many archaeologists
lump their sites into mega assemblages as though the
site was a single feature. Comparing lumped sites,
especially those occupied for long periods of time, is
a waste of time (Miller 2000, elec. comm.).
Summary
Objects have lifespans within any cultural
system. Objects are made, used, and discarded.
Historical archaeologists need to recognize that

the length of time in which objects are used
can be substantial, indeed many decades long.
As a result, some classes of artifacts are less
useful than others for dating a site. Ceramics
are used because these objects last millennia in
the ground and are usually found in quantity.
Yet because ceramics have long lifespans, their
manufacturing dates tell little, as such, about
how long they were used. Clearly, the best
sources for dating sites are the documentary
evidence, but those data are not always available for a given site and have inherent biases.
Artifacts must be used, including ceramics, to
date sites. The study presented here demonstrates that dating sites must be done with a
fuller understanding of the social, economic,
historical, ethnic, and market contexts affecting
the manufacture, use, and discard of material
culture. Time lag of material culture is an
important variable needing to be addressed for
every site being studied.
While this article suggests that ceramic tablewares, on average, had lifespans of 15 to 20
years, this lifespan will vary greatly through
time, space, socioeconomic status, ethnicity, and
individual households. What is being urged is
that better and more accurate date ranges be
adopted for ceramic types and, further, that
those dates be used to reveal the differences
between sites by demonstrating how long ceramics lasted in individual households. This can be
done on a micro level, for example, by looking
at how long tea wares last versus tablewares or
how long certain patterns lasted. Because of
the variability in lifespans, ceramic vessels are
ultimately poor sources for dating sites. They
are invaluable resources to gain insight into the
households.
MCD dates or whatever new and improved
versions are created in the future should never
have any number added to them mindlessly to
derive an occupation date. Maybe someday it
can be said that 17801840 sites in Kentucky,
Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois will normally exhibit
a 13.6956 year difference between ceramic initial means and initial occupation dates based
on documents, or that African-American sites
in western Camden County, Georgia, dating
from late 1886 will show a 15.89390 year
difference. Right now, all that can be said is
that ceramics last a relatively long time and that
their lifespans must be taken into consideration

when interpreting site assemblages.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The issue of time lag has been discussed at length
with too many people at too many SHA meetings to
thank everyone with whom I have spoken. I would
like to thank Ivor Nol Hume, Stanley South, Bert
Salwen, Edward F. Heite, Sarah Peabody Turnbaugh,
and George Miller especially, for each corresponded
with me about time lag. Linda P. Gaw assisted me in
developing the original time lag model for the Silcott
data. Tim Riordan followed up that Silcott study with
the Fort Walla Walla data. Several people read and
commented on the manuscript at various stages and
contributed to its development; I thank Rick Sprague,
Susan Piddock, and Tim Anson for their input.
In order to get a broad set of comments, I posted
the manuscript to the Web for two weeks in May 2000
and let the HISTARCH subscribers know the URL.
Quite a few people took the time to download the
manuscript and send me their comments. Responses
came from the USA, Germany, England, and Australia.
I thank Alasdair Brooks, Vicky Drusetta, Chris
Espenshade, James G. Gibb, Ned Heite, Uwe Mueller,
George J. Myers, Jr., Gaye Nayton, Adrian Praetzellis,
David Rotenstein, Cathy Spude, and Carl Steen. I
would encourage other brave souls to post their
work to the Web before submitting it for publication.
The comments received were most constructive and
encouraging. They contained many ideas for improving
the manuscript as well as expanding even further. I
tried to address most of the comments. George sent
a seven-page letter after going back to our original
raw data (Adams, Gaw, and Leonhardy 1975). Using
additional information, he could add to our dating
information. George has been a wonderful sounding
board for the past 25 years on the issue of time lag. I
also thank him for providing copies of his publications.
I thank Dick Ross for tracking down some articles and
Dennis Muraoka for his comments on economics.
I also thank the anonymous reviewers for reading
this manuscript and commenting on it and the
editorial staff of Historical Archaeology for their work
in the production of this article: Ronn Michael, Bonnie
McEwan, and Judy Tordoff.
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CAMARILLO, CA 93012-8599

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38

William Hampton Adams

Dating Historical Sites:

Not Seeing the Forest for All the Trees

ceramic and glass dates at a California homestead. He examined the

May suggested that adding eight years to the

This simple logic is flawed. The earliest

from 18321854. Say this plate was used for 15

HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY 37(2)

product produced will be in those initial years

and casserole pans used infrequently had longer

between the date of manufacture and the date

The point in history in which these events

HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY 37(2)

Quantifying Time Lag: The Assemblage

Michigan (Brose 1967). Both studies suggest

made some 4.76.4 years earlier than the date for

HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY 37(2)

Glass/Ceramic Difference between Mean Initial

Insignia Date in Relation to Glass Mean Initial

Insignia Date in Relation to Cartridge Mean

Insignia Date in Relation to Glass Mean Terminal

for initial dates, 5.221.7 years for median dates,

1. The use of trademarks by bottle manufacturers became

likely, for the store was built about 1910. One

HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY 37(2)

imports from England and the fact that this

yellow ware as creamware and thus leave it floating

That the MCD method is seriously flawed has

ceramics would have obviously been used at the

particularly in 1807 as a result of the French

manufacturing history, transportation history, and

HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY 37(2)

preceding 40 years or in the late 1850s. Putting

The case of the introduction of the vinyl top

does not mean that everything in it is newly

using concepts like poverty as the explanation for

HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY 37(2)

prestige value, and may be hard to replace. As

The above comment focuses on probability.

The biological concept of life cycle is an

Families go through a life cycle too. The

health, threats of war, pestilence, and so forth,

HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY 37(2)

Before the American Revolution, maintaining

differences in long-term assemblages should

be so eager to buy that they would not care.

individuals was probably more important than

HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY 37(2)

to purchase based upon auction prices in the big

examination of time lag using various functional

being broken. Eventually, all things become part

Since the ship was commissioned in 1773 and

HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY 37(2)

The hand-me-down effect has been used as an

tableware? This is a valid explanation for the

than by differences in time. Wall discussed an

HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY 37(2)

Although as seen above, relatively few

Unlike prehistoric sites and the ethnographic

sizes are usually meaninglessly small from the

year or two may still elapse. During the 19th

Wine bottles clearly have some serious