Modern archaeology is just the same as ancient archaeology, just we don't veiw it through rose tinted glasses. As the Time Team presenters Prof. Aston and Baldrick aptly described it in their 2002 book...''Archaeology is Rubbish''. Not all of it, though a huge proportion of it, particularly the mundane domestic variety. That's the stuff I love, the stuff that illuminates real peoples lives. People ask what's the best thing you've found, expecting tales of shiny trinkets, and are surprised when I say it was a locally produced rip off version of a high status Roman Samian Ware bowl, I found in a rubbish deposit in a terminal end of a ditch...than and every piece of worked flint I've found. The shiny trinkets, pretty as they are, only shed lives on the 1% of that period, and they've always had it good...some things never change. Today I discovered a item of modern archaeology, a returnable Corona fizzy pop bottle, one of the later for sure, with it's returnable value of 10 pence it has to be near 40 years old. Bearing in mind I'm presuming it's laid exposed on the surface since then, it's remarkably well preserved, of course the label has long disappeared. It speaks of a different age, quite enlightened really from the recycling perspective, where as kids we'd collect these bottles to supplement any money for sweets we'd have, and as we got a bit older money towards cigarettes...which as kids you could buy singularly from the corner shop, even in your school uniform.
