How deep?

[TooManyHobbies]

I've been bottle hunting near my home in CT. I search through the top modern "50's" stuff, hoping to find the old glass at the bottom. I only dig 6" or so before hitting stones and more dirt. We have a ton of stone/rock here. Did the oldtimers just dump on the ground in piles or did they dig a hole and fill it? I keep hoping for a pit with 100 yr old bottles, but can't find one. Just a bunch of surface dumps. I'll keep looking.

[jgas]

I would imagine the pits being quite similar all over. I dig ones 6 feet deep. Sometimes I have to go through a foot or two of rocks, dirt, busted up cement and whatever else they had to throw in there as back fill. Get yourself a spring steel probe and use that to determine how deep the trash or ash or whatever may be below. But you definitely have to go down a couple feet if not more to connect to the early 1900's. Look for any bottle or plate shards that would give you an idea of how old the pit may be. Look for backmarks on plates too. Hope that helps, but I am no pro.....nor will I ever be. Take care... jgas

[gleaner1]

Here in the Northeast, in the really old dumps, they tended to throw all the stuff on the surface, including rocks and stones they pulled from the farm fields. These dumps usually are full of broken stuff. I have the most luck in the swampy areas, or in deep hollows, or along stream/river banks. I have never seen evidence that the dump was a pre-dug hole, too much labor involved. A lot of times, we find decent dumps right next to foundations, they just threw the crap out the same window for years and years. Funny how times change.

[TooManyHobbies]

Thanks guys. I would think it easy to miss a dump when probing, because of hitting a rock at 12". I'll continue to search. The area I'm hunting has at least 6 spots that glass and cans were dumped. I do get broken glass at the bottom, but then nothing.

[ruccello]

Gleaner is right. I dig a lot of dumps in the NE, and all of them seem to be surface dumps - lots of rocks on top of bottles, bottles stuck between rocks, dumps with only rocks and broken bottles. The swamp dumps are great if you can find them. Most of the swamp dumps I find seem to be around the old mills where water was needed to run the mill.

You can usually tell when you should stop digging - the dirt changes color - usually to clay or sand. The top soil color where the bottles are is usually dark, sometimes mixed with an ash layer. I'll dig until I hit the clay/sand layer, that's the bottom. Hope this helps, and good luck.

Richard

[TooManyHobbies]

Ruccello, that's exactly what I'm finding. Helps a lot, thanks.