There is a program on British television that I love watching. I loved it in the early days when it was broadcast on Dutch television and I still love it today. It's called Time Team and it is basically a show about archeaology. Some random person digs a hole to bury a cat and finds a wall. A farmer plows his field and all of a sudden Roman coins come to the surface. They call in the Time Team and they come and dig the site for three days. Completely ruining the garden, but usually finding a lot. Roman temples, Iron Age villages, medieaval castles, Victorian factories, WWII bunkers. And everything in between.
One way of finding out who lived/worked there and when is looking at what is left in the ground. A bit of pottery, a coin, perhaps a bit of glass. Sometimes they find a midden (or dump to you and me) and lots of animal bones and other bits of rubbish are found. They always get so excited when they do. People lived here, they ate here, they slept here! All to be told by that one piece of pottery.
Our rubbish is different. If we were to throw out all of our rubbish in our backyards, we wouldn't be able to see the grass before long. Because where our ancestors had to deal with fresh food and perhaps a stone pot or two, we not only deal with fresh food, but also with its packaging, usually plastic. The other day when I bought a tiny little thing, the packaging was three times as much as the actual thing I bought! But most countries nowadays have come up with a solution: collect the waste and take it away.
I wonder what archeaologist will find in 1000 years time in our backyards. A piece of pottery? A plastic label to say what plant it is? A few bones of a favourite pet? A lost diamond wedding ring? A coin or two? Or perhaps a Visa Card? Or won't there be any archeaologists in a 1000 years' time to find anything because we have ruined our planet with all our rubbish way before then?
This post is prompted by Spin Cycle. Thank you Ginny Marie at
Lemon Drop Pie.
PS: for you Dutch and Norwegians out there: spot the mistake in the photos! Look closely now!
Time Team sounds like a show I would enjoy, too! I do hate some of the packaging that we have these days. There's too many plastic bags!
ReplyDeleteHari OM
ReplyDeleteI adore Time Team and am very sad it finally got axed. Still, 20 years of recycled shows will still be good!
Talking recycling - is that a missing "L" I spy??? This was great post Mara - I couldn't agree more that our 'middens' will be somewhat less exciting to futurologists... from whichever world.... YAM xx
The missing l is the least of it. One (restafval) is in Dutch, which uses the v's and f's the other way round to the Norwegian (matavfall), the latter using two l's as well to make the sound short. Well done!!
DeleteThey are repeating some of the later episodes now (seasons 16 and 17). I wouldn't mind if they went back to some of the first series and repeated those!
In my garden they would only find animal bones, lol ! I remember when we bought the ground in Waterloo, I hoped to find some bones or medals from the Waterloo battle. But unfortunately we didn't find anything not even a button !
ReplyDeleteThat sounds like a good show.
ReplyDeleteThat sounds like a great show, I think I would enjoy watching it! That last paragraph is something to think about.......
ReplyDeleteSounds like a good show. I would love to find a pre-paid visa card!
ReplyDeleteAh, but would it still be useable after 1000 years?
DeleteI think I might enjoy that show. I hate to think of what people 1000 years from now will think of our society and our wastefulness.
ReplyDeleteYet their archeaologists might get as excited as they do nowadays when they find a bit of Roman pottery in a sight not known for it!
DeleteSounds fun. Old land mines, old nuclear plants and of course all the packaging! Well said, Mara.
ReplyDeleteOf course all that packaging. That amazing amount of packaging.
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