Solder scavenging from hole-and-cap food cans in the Western Australian goldfields: Identifying site modification processes

Abstract

Site modification via large and dense can dumps dating from the gold rushes of the 1880s and later in the Western Australian goldfields may profoundly affect the archaeological interpretation of these sites. A can dump has been examined in the abandoned campground of Muslim cameleers that dated from the 1892 gold rush to after the First World War. Here, can dumps comprising hundreds of cans, stacked up and in mutual contact and without other artefacts such as bottles, were not all the unmodified remains of meals and camps of transient people. This work presents a geochemical technique applied to soil samples around these dumps, showing high levels of tin and lead contamination, inconsistent with the underlying geology and similar to the composition of the solder used to seal the cans. This is consistent with the written reminiscences of a family supplementing its income by scavenging solder from hole-and-cap food cans over the period 1894–1909. This process of site modification by solder scavenging must be considered before food-can distribution patterns can be interpreted in terms of primary site occupation.