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Archaeologists find 1890s soft drink bottle during Cambridge excavation
2025-04-29 08:02:23 / MISTERE&KURIOZITETE
During an excavation in a car park at San Pedro High School in Cambridge, archaeologists made an extraordinary discovery – a rare Victorian soft drink bottle dating back to the 1890s.
This discovery, part of a larger project to redevelop the Grafton shopping center into a new science center, was uncovered as part of ongoing excavations.
The intact bottle offers a rare window into the daily lives of those who lived in the area more than a century ago.
The bottle, still sealed with its original marble stopper, is an extraordinary find. “It’s rare to find these bottles in one piece,” said Les Capon, project manager with AOC Archaeology.
Such bottles were commonly broken by eager children to get the small marble inside, making this discovery all the more remarkable. Capon suspects that the bottle may have been stored in a basement or on a shelf, untouched until the site was excavated for redevelopment.
This simple yet significant object provides valuable insight into the consumer products of the era and helps connect modern-day scholars with the past.
Alongside the bottle, archaeologists discovered evidence suggesting that the site once had a blacksmith shop. The discovery of a forge, anvil and metal fragments points to the industrial history of the area.
“In the ash pits [where trash would be buried in gardens] is where we get the good stuff,” Capon explained. These pits were often places where people dumped their unwanted items, and they serve as a rich source of archaeological finds.
The found items, including fragments from the blacksmith's work, offer a glimpse into the daily activities of the past, showing how local craftsmen contributed to the community's economy.
"The broken things you see in museums come from the garbage dumps of the past... they tell us what life was like, the status of the people who lived there, how wealthy they were and what they consumed or threw away," Capon added.
The excavation not only uncovered physical artifacts, but also helped piece together the socio-economic conditions of the time. This discovery further enriches our understanding of the historical landscape, providing clues about what people valued, used, and discarded.
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