I had the opportunity to go to Cannakale in Turkey to an excavation thought to be the site of Homer's Troy in the Bronze Age.

Now, fast forwarding several decades, we shift the scene to the Mojave Desert several decades later.

I am standing in a trash pit of what I think is the foundation of a long-gone temporary (1933-1938) construction worker's hospital in an abandoned and grown-over work camp site not far from the Colorado River Aqueduct which brings Colorado River water to LA from Parker Dam on the Colorado. In the hot desert sun, I am working carefully to find an unambiguous item that will identify this hospital site for sure. The artifacts are very different from what was at Cannakale and the question leaps to mind, "At what point, as you move towards the present, does archaology cease and trash-picking begin?"

In this case, it must have still been archaology because I was able to make the successful point that the site should become a California State Historical Site but move much closer to the present and I start having socks in my bureau drawers that are that age. Are they getting historical?

Sourdough SOurdough