Events – Lake of the Woods County Historical Society

I was looking through our glass bottle collection and thought I’d share a uniquely shaped bottle. This fish shaped brown glass bottle was made by a company who produced cod liver oil. Click on the pictures to get a better view, Facebook seems to struggle with centering my photos 🙂 From an archaeological perspective, bottles are especially useful because they can help date a site. Yes, archaeologists study modern trash too 🙂 Since companies often changed over time, the names or initials embossed on the bottles would also change. Glass manufacturing also changed (so hand blown to mass produced by machine or as the tops changed) which can also help narrow down a date for the bottle. This bottle dates to between 1930 and 1933, based on its size and the screw cap (I looked this up through the company). The company also stopped making the bottles in 1933. If you were an archaeologist and came across this at a site, you would know that the level you were excavating couldn’t be older than 1930. I could have a bottle from 1930 thatI bought at an antique store today…..but I can’t be in 1910 and get my hands on a bottle 20 years in the future 🙂 Think of archaeological levels like those multi flavor pudding snack packs….eat one flavor, scraping away with your spoon, at a time.
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