New place to dig bottles

[CharlesSpurgeon]

So I came up on this side of a hill and it is covered with literally glass bottles everywhere. The ones on the surface range from brown clorox to clear medicine to broken cokes ranging from 50s-70s. I tried digging and was curious what to expect. About 18" down I hit a layer of metal cans, oil cans etc and then past that is a layer of orange/tan sand. That's as far as Ive dug. In your experience is this a dump or fill dirt brought in? Do you think there will be stuff under the sandy layer? Thanks

 

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[glass half fool]

The best way to know it get out there and start digging .That's what makes it fun to start with .You never know what you might find Good luck

 

[Dug]

Looks like it is covered in poison ivy too so you might take precautions unless "you're immune to the stuff" (Addicted to Love )

A bottle probe is your friend in determining the depth of the dump unless you like digging a lot.

 

[Plumbata]

I've frequently encountered layers of sand used to cap deeper dump layers, and the sand layer can be pretty deep depending on where you dig. Definitely worth sinking a test hole as the earlier layers could be significantly older and better.

 

[A2coins]

Good luck gotta be some keepers

 

[unclemac]

you could also step off 20 paces and see if that sand layer is localized or everywhere.

 

[Billieg]

When I was a kid in PA in the early 50's we still used dumps to get rid of the garbage. It was a common thing going back a long ways. We had a farm and the hired hands would dig a hole 8' round and about 5' deep to dump out garbage in. We had one just for bottles and metal and one for other stuff. the other stuff we burned. When they got full we would back fill them in. I could go back there today and I'd know where they were located but I'm not into old bottles. I'd say use a metal detector and when you get a strong/large signal it's probably a dump. I remember finding a really old dump back in the woods by an old foundation. It had all these colored bottles and porcelain pots and pans.

 

[NJKLAGT]

Nothing like finding a new dump!

Dug's right about the probe, it'll help you learn more about what's underground without having to wear your back out. And what unclemac said about walking a little ways from the dump and digging a hole to see what the natural undisturbed soil looks like at various depths, that's also great advice.

'Looking forward to seeing what you find!