From Bottling Plant to Buried Trash: Soft Drinks in the MARTA Archaeological Collection

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "The Phoenix Project and the Rebirth of the MARTA Archaeological Collection", at the 2025 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

Atlanta has always been a major hub for soft drink production since the beginning of the industry, producing the world’s most popular soft drink, Coca-Cola, as well as attracting its competitors and knockoffs from surrounding areas. In this presentation, I discuss my work analyzing the soft drink industry in 20th-century Atlanta based on the physical bottles and cans found in the MARTA Archaeological collection along with associated historical research. The scope of the collection presents substantial data for tracking brands throughout the time and space of 20th-century Atlanta to uncover an untold history of the Southeastern soft drink industry and its role in Atlanta’s history. Academic research on soft drink history and archaeology is rare, but a relatable topic to the public. Through my ongoing research, I have compiled a catalog of all the soda bottles in the collection along with publicly documenting interesting specimens for the Phoenix Project website.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• The Phoenix Project and the Rebirth of the MARTA Archaeological Collection   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2025

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Nicole Haddow