![]() Licence is investigating the era when all of that changed, during the reign of Queen Victoria, from 1837 until 1901. Trash in the preindustrial era often consisted of broken ceramics, shells, animal bones and other items that couldn't be reused. But 200 years ago, Licence says, the average household in Western society produced almost no garbage as we understand it today. Nowadays, we're surrounded by so much packaging, you might think it has always been there. (His doctorate is in history.) "We're interested in what people threw away and how we became a throwaway society." "We dig up rubbish," says Licence, who is the director of the Centre of East Anglian Studies at the University of East Anglia. Studying what people threw away 150 years ago, Licence is getting to the bottom of an important issue: how much we throw away, and how to change that. But Licence works in the field of " garbology." While some may dig deep down to get to the good stuff - ancient tombs, residences, bones - Licence looks at the top layers, which, where he lives in England, are filled with Victorian-era garbage. When you think of archaeology, you might think of Roman ruins, ancient Egypt or Indiana Jones. ![]() Tom Licence has a Ph.D., and he's a garbage man. In Victorian England, people transitioned from making most things at home to buying them in stores. A Dundee marmalade jar (left) is among items recently unearthed from a 19th century landfill behind a manor house in East Anglia.
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