Recent investigative archaeology looking for graves turned up some late twentieth century fill from utility service trenches. We found this coke can in a clearly stratified layer, above natural soil and beneath brick rubble that included both 19th century handmade bricks and ceramics and much more modern material.
Turns out the guy with the largest Coke can collection in the world's name is Gary
There is a useful Coke can chronological typology if you ever have to date a modern fill layer yourself.
Some dating depends on small details - note the 1987 logo doesn't have the separating red lines either side of the 'l' which starts in 1988. In the late 90s, some block shadow was added, the swoosh was moved to below the lettering instead of through it, and the 'l' gained a full loop. This website is good for a range of cans.
Since 2030 marks the 75th anniversary of the first Coca Cola can, its not too long before they become real archaeology in Victoria, where there is a 75 year threshold for recording historical archaeological sites on the state heritage inventory. It used to be 50 years but I suspect some of the people in the government heritage bodies started to worry about their own age putting them in the archaeological remains category.
The other very dateable part of modern cans of course, is the ring pull or pull tab. There are many pull tab typologies to obsess over and hours of time wasting to be done - or you can goggle them yourself. Here are a choice few
- A crown sourced international citizen science project
- Their Facebook page
Ring-Tab Beer Cans Now Count As Historic Artifacts (in USA)
there was even a festival
A bit of more serious research
And other bloggers have done even more hyperlinking than you can fit into an afternoon.
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