ODYSSEY: OTHER PEOPLE'S GARBAGE (TV)
Summary
One in this series of documentaries which explore peoples and cultures from all over the world. In this program, three archaeological dig sites are examined in order to show how people's garbage can reveal historical facts about a society. The first dig site is on a California hillside, where archaeologists and their students uncover a nineteenth-century immigrant coal mining town. Even though written and oral records show a wealth of information about the town, digging can reveal new information about the personal lives of the people who lived in the community. The archaeologists discover many artifacts which describe the people and what some of their hobbies were. Additional findings prove that other work was performed besides coal mining. The second dig site is in Georgia, on land that used to be the most productive cotton plantation in the world. The archaeologists at this site are digging up the slave settlements that lie just outside the plantation grounds.
Little is known about the slaves who worked on that plantation, even though there are written records of each one of them. Archaeologists discover pieces of firing mechanisms from a musket on the floor of many of the settlement houses, proving the slaves kept illegal weapons; records of the slaves' daily diet, which indicate it was insufficient to sustain their work load; a smoke shack where the remains of raccoons, rabbits, possum, and other wild game show the slaves captured and ate the animals in order to feed themselves properly; and an eraser from a pencil, which proves that some slaves could read and write, even though it was against the law. The last archaeological site is in Boston, Massachusetts. In this urban area, archaeologists are beginning to uncover artifacts that dates back three centuries. Archaeologists work in area recently excavated by construction workers for the expanding transit system. In Harvard Square, a discovery is made of artifacts that date back to the colonial period, stalling the construction efforts. In an urban area such as this, finding undisturbed sites that contain centuries-old pottery, coins, and refuse is a rare occurence.
Details
- NETWORK: PBS
- DATE: May 18, 1980 Sunday 8:00 PM
- RUNNING TIME: 0:58:44
- COLOR/B&W: Color
- CATALOG ID: T:38029
- GENRE: Public affairs/Documentaries
- SUBJECT HEADING: Archaeology
- SERIES RUN: PBS - TV series, 1980-1981
- COMMERCIALS: N/A
CREDITS
- Michael Ambrosino … Executive Producer
- Ann Peck … Supervising Producer
- Claire Andrade Watkins … Producer
- Jed Schwartz … Animation
- Don Wescott … Narrator