Archaeologists are trained to explore and excavate ancient sites. Some sites have monuments that can be seen above ground, but the older the site, the less you will see on the surface. Over time, buildings crumble and collapse, wind and rain add to the destruction, and finally what one will see today is what looks like an earthen mound. Any such mound on flat ground is probably an ancient site. Archaeologists may explore such a mound, digging a vertical trench, carefully removing layer after layer of bricks, pottery and other artefacts, and then analysing their nature and period of time through various scientific methods. Alternatively, they may conduct a horizontal excavation across the whole mound, removing everything layer by layer, labelling and storing it for further analysis. This is when they also come across pits of garbage, known as ‘middens’ which reveal so much about the lifestyles of the past. Of course, human garbage reveals an equal amount about present lifestyles, and studying our garbage is one of the ways in which archaeologists of the future will try to understand our way of life. Garbology is the term used for the science of studying garbage and its disposal, both in the past, and in the present.
Right from the time people made stone tools, garbage began to pile up-in those days it consisted of discarded tools and flakes. later, people discarded seeds, plants, shells, animal bones and pottery, among other things, all of which can be used to analyse the past. Richard H Meadow, an anthropologist and zooarchaeologist (specialist in the study of animal remains from archaeological sites) and the excavator of several sites including Harappa, pointed out, “Much of what archaeology knows about the past comes from trash, if trash is defined as the products of human consumption.” Early dumping grounds, he explained, tell us about ancient civilisations, including what they ate and wore, and how they disposed of their waste.
A particular kind of garbage pit or midden is a shell midden, also known as a kitchen midden. These middens consist of heaps of shells of clams, oysters, mussels and other shellfish, which were discarded after the fish were eaten. One of the earliest shell-middens was found at the Blombos Cave in South Africa, dating to 1,40,000 years ago. Analysing these shells help us to understand not only what they ate, but how. Were the fish raw or cookedIJ If an estimate of population could be made, how much did they eat per personIJ What time of the year were these creatures eatenIJ Such painstaking analysis leads to an understanding of the past.
A similar analysis can be made in the present. Today the disposal of garbage creates huge problems across the world. A recent article in Newsweek suggests that garbage disposal and protests against garbage dumps pose more of a problem to Putin in Russia than pro-democracy activism.
William Rathje (1945-2012), an archaeologist and anthropologist, has been called ‘the father of garbology’. In a pioneering effort, when he was professor emeritus of anthropology at the University of Arizona, he started the Tucson Garbage Project in 1973, which developed into a many-pronged study, looking at nutrition, consumerism, diet, recycling and garbage disposal. Several schools in the United States now have similar projects, which is helping to reduce rampant consumerism. Along with Cullen Murphy, Rathje also wrote a book called Rubbish! The Archaeology of Garbage. Though more about garbage in modern times, the book states, “Garbage is among humanity’s most prodigious physical legacies to those who have yet to be born.”
In fact garbology, along with capitalism and consumerism, has contributed to the ‘freegan movement’, which, I think, is yet to reach India. Freegans are those who, in theory, are committed to not buying anything at all. Freeganism is against the capitalist consumerist society, and aims to conserve water, reuse goods, grow their own food, use wild plants, and even rummage in dumping grounds and garbage bins for food and other items. They also have a philosophy that shows how one can live with minimum consumption, and with scarcely leaving a mark on the planet.
In Dehradun we have organisations like the Waste Warriors working to reduce and recycle waste. They could also introduce students to the study of garbage, as in the USA, leading to an understanding of diet, sustainability and several other factors. Also our garbage collectors, who sort through garbage with their hands, could be given the more refined name of ‘garbologists’.
(A PhD in ancient Indian History, the writer lives in Dehradun and has authored ten books)
