130 Year Old Outhouses – Treasure Trove for Artifacts
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Think you have a ‘dirty job’? Archeologists in Ventura, California may have you beat by a landslide. The location where a pair of outhouses once stood 130 years ago is proving to be a gold mine for archaeologists who braved the lingering smell in the dirt and fecal matter to uncover some 19th Century artifacts — and a mystery.
Archaeologist Marisa Solorzano is a member of a team that’s excavating a housing site in what used to be the center of the alluring Ventura.
Call it a wonder or whatever you will, a rose is still a rose by any other name — the site is the furthest thing from enchanting right now. Photo Rob Varela – Ventura County Star
But the painstaking work in the gut wrenching dig has paid off in spades. Among the artifacts uncovered is a pistol dating to the 1800s, a bowie knife, several small whiskey flasks and a set of false teeth — all unearthed from either the women’s outhouse or a nearby men’s latrine, reports Ventura County Star
The mystery lies in the findings of dog skulls. A large blade from a set of sheep shears was found next to two dog skulls, one with a couple of vertebrae still attached.
“It might be an early crime scene.” project archaeologist John Foster said. “It looks like the two dogs were decapitated. Then whoever did it dumped the skulls and the blade, thinking the women probably wouldn’t be looking too hard into the bottom of the privy.”
The archaeological team has been working the dig since late May, after demolition crews knocked down a former school district bus barn and offices on 3.5 acres at East Santa Clara and Junipero streets to make way for a condominium and parking garage project.
Due to the demolition, areas were opened creating a passage into Ventura’s rich history that were previously inaccessible because they were covered by structures.
The area was heavily populated by mission inhabitants, American Indians, early settlers and Spanish and Mexican soldiers.
The downtown property was later home to Ventura’s first courthouse and jail, and its first hospital. Brothels once stood a block away, on the very same turf where early inhabitants made beads of shells harvested from the ocean.
“When you think about it, this used to be part of Spain.” said Foster, a seasoned archaeologist and vice president in charge of operations for Greenwood and Associates.
On Monday, the demolished site — about the size of two football fields — looked like a crater enclosed by a chain-link fence. A series of deep trenches and crevasses and head-high piles of dirt occupied the site.
The busy team of archaeologists, including Solorzano and Val Kirstine of Newbury Park, pored carefully over the soil and aged excrement with small instruments and whisk brushes, documenting their findings on a clipboard.
“We are seeing a broad spectrum of history here.” Kirstine said.
“It’s fascinating to see all the different levels of occupation.” said Julie Tumamait, a Chumash descendant and one of the American Indian monitors required during excavation.
The work so far has not revealed a human burial area, Tumamait said, but there have been some distinct finds.
Historical surveys and maps indicated they would find a 400 foot portion of a Mission-era wall foundation believed to have bordered an early orchard. The foundation was built with large stones as heavy as 40 to 50 pounds, and “represents an incredible amount of effort” by early settlers and Chumash laborers, Foster said.
But the archaeology team also unearthed a separate, wider swath of a similar stone foundation that runs perpendicular to the garden wall. It’s too wide for a wall, and is constructed of odd-shaped stones.
“I’m not sure what it is.” Foster said. “It could be an unknown Mission element. That’s part of the mystery of these excavations.”
All findings, photographs and documentation will go to the Museum of Ventura County. The museum’s library staff provided Foster’s team with some old panoramic photographs of the courthouse and jail, which opened in 1874.
The county hospital was constructed around 1887. The courthouse and hospital were abandoned in the 1920′s. The Ventura Unified School District’s administration offices and a bus storage and maintenance facility began operating in the 1960′s and later relocated its administration offices to an office complex on Stanley Avenue.
“It’s almost like the ruins of Pompeii.” museum Director Tim Schiffer said. “It’s fascinating to see how intact these old stone foundations are when you think about how close the site is to the freeway and downtown.”
The Olson Co., developer of the land, has permitted several more weeks for the excavation to continue to give the archaeological team enough time and space to do a complete job, Foster said.
The site will then be cleared for a 172-unit condominium project, the largest of a handful of new developments planned.
Dubbed ‘Renaissance Walk,’ the multistory development will have an underground parking garage. Thus the remnants of the stone and brick foundations and the privies will have to be demolished. That’s all the motivation Solorzano needs to continue with her foul job.
“The further you go down, the stronger the smell.” she said. “But it’s not that bad. These privies are archaeological gold mines.”
A short clip is available for the current dig site.
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Umm… Ventura, Spain? I think you mean Ventura, California.
Thanks for the interesting article though.
DOH! Thanks for catching that Tiff! I’ve corrected it
well Deborah !!! I wonder what they would find in our aussie outhouses…..as we still have a lot of them in use over here ……
Get out! I haven’t seen one in use since I was a kid visiting at the farm!
Well be my guest Kim, apparently you never know what you’ll dig up, haha!