Archaeologists excited over old toilets!

IAFRICA ^ | Posted Thu, 20 Jan 2005 | AFP

[Larry Lucido]

Were they 5 gallon or 1.6 gallons?

[BobS]

"Excited archaeologists are sifting through the contents of 150-year-old New Zealand toilets...

Sniffing around old potty jes' has to require a government grant. These archaologists are probably excited because they found used condoms and tampons.

[Betis70]

They already have a term for it. Coprolite analysis, though I think that usually refers to petrified caca.

This sounds more like digging through privies, which archies do here in the US too. You get a lot of information that way about diet, nutrition, relative wealth, that sort of thing. I've never done it myself, but I have dug through dumps/refuse piles.

[Quix]

Goodness, if they have an obsession to

dig through poop . . .

I'm sure Shrillery and Billdo's house is full of it.

Probably a lot fresher!

[AnAmericanMother]

Roman artifacts have been excavated from "dunnies" in England -- all sorts of odd stuff that went down the privy.

Get a hold of a copy of Mollie Harris's Cotswold Privies for a thorough history . . .

"Dunnie" by the way is short for "Dunniekin" or "Dinna ken" i.e. "I don't know" . . . the modest answer to "where are you going?" when headed for the "necessary", "down the garden", "reading room", or any of the other many euphemisms for the outdoor privy. Privy itself is a euphemism, from "privatus" meaning "private place."

BTW, after 75 years all the "stuff" has completely decomposed and all you've got is just particularly rich soil. We accidentally excavated one once with a backhoe, belatedly realized what it was when the old seats surfaced in the bucket . . . but it didn't smell.

[Sola Veritas]

"I get kind of giddy over mine too after several beers..."

Yeah, I saw alot of that over 30 years ago when I was in the Navy. Usually some drunk sailor looking for his buddy "O'Roake" or shopping for a car "Buick."

[ProtectOurFreedom]

...not unusual to go thru a reading of 'Gone With The Wind' or 'Exodus' in one sitting

Great! LOL

[Sola Veritas]

"Real comfortable, not unusual to go thru a reading of 'Gone With The Wind' or 'Exodus' in one sitting."

Wow, be careful. My physician told me that long sessions can cause hemoroids!

[Bean Counter]

You gotta pity the poor Interns who are no doubt going to be the ones doing the digging.

sheesh!

[Verginius Rufus]

I believe it was coprolite analysis that conclusively proved that cannibalism had been practiced in the pre-Columbian American Southwest...it was written up in a book of a few years back called Man Corn (I haven't seen the book but read an article which discussed the book's findings).

[blam]

"If I excavated one of those I would be just flushed with pride!"

I would be strained some but, me too.

BTW, It was Christy Turner who used a mummified corpolite (turd) to end the controversy as to wheather the Indians of the Chaco Canyon ate human flesh. They did.

[Betis70]

I actually might have examined some of those bones. Green-stick fractures of the femurs (getting to the marrow while the bone is still fresh), lack of collagen in the bones (probably boiled), lots of cut marks at the epiphesis. Fairly gristly stuff actually. Christy Turner had sent the bones to my professor for a second opinion.

I'll have to look up the book. Ahh, and guess what? It is by none other than Christy Turner. Interesting.

[steveo]

I get kind of giddy over mine too after several beers...

Yeah in the middle of the night I usually hit the target correct 8 out of 10 tries!

[digger48]

Excited archaeologists are sifting through the contents of 150-year-old New Zealand toilets....

You'd really have to know your sh!t to do that!

[Ciexyz]

I smell a project idea...there are many rural areas in the US that have had outhouses for over 150 years.

[GVnana]

ROTFLMPO! Hmmm. I need a new tag line.

[Verginius Rufus]

Man Corn: Cannibalism and Violence in the Prehistoric American Southwest, by Christy G. Turner, II, and Jacqueline Turner. University of Utah Press, 1999. 547 pp.

[FreedomFarmer]

Ode To The Little Brown Shack
(Billy Ed Wheeler)

They past an ordinance in the town
Said we'd have to tear it down
That little brown shack out back so dear to me
Though the health department said
It's day was over and dead
It will stand forever in my memory

Don't let 'em tear that little brown building down
Don't let 'em tear that little brown building down
Don't let 'em tear that little brown building down
There's not another like it in the country or the town

It was not too long ago
That I went tripping through the snow
Out to that house behind my old hound dog
Where I'd sit me down to rest
Like a snow bird on her nest
And read the Sears and Roebuck catalog

I would hum a happy tune
Peeping through the quarter moon
Just like my Pappy's kin had done before
It was in that quiet pot
Daily cares could be forgot
And it gave the same relief to rich and poor

It was not a castle fair
I could build my future there
Build castles to the yellow jacket's drone
I could orbit round the sun
Fight with General Washington
Or be a king upon his own throne

It wasn't fancy built at all
Had newspapers on the wall
It was air conditioned in the wintertime
It was just a humble hut
But it's door was never shut
And a man could get inside without a dime

Copyright Quartet Music, Inc. & Bexhill Music
from the singing of Ed Britt

[elephantlips]

I've got some old toilet paper. Perhaps they would want to see it.

[dbehsman]

At the local black powder shop here, one of the salesmen was relating a story about an old muzzle-loading pistol that was found at the bottom of an old outhouse site. Speculation went all over the board. Some of the guys felt that it could have been a murder weapon. Some thought that it was stolen and hidden there (who would ever look in the bottom for their missing pistol?), and the thief never returned to get the pistol (who would REALLY WANT a pistol that's been at the bottom of the outhouse pit?). My personal theory is that someone (perhaps drunk) had the pistol tucked in his belt and when he went to use the facilities, it slipped out unbeknownst to him and went straight to the bottom. It is incredible what can be found in some of the weirdest places!