Currently Fred Sutherland is developing visual guides and typologies for two important classes of historic artifacts: Bottles and Can Tabs. While a rich and detailed digital and print media landscape of bottle identification, much of it available on the Society for Historical Archaeology’s website, some of the critical visuals to diagnose markings on bottles are not easy to visualize. Fred is experimenting with 3D scanning bottles from the NCC type collection in order to represent those key portions more accurately.  

Meanwhile, Fred Sutherland is also corresponding with avocational and professional scholars who are developing a typological guide for aluminum beverage can tabs dating from the early 1960s up to the present. Timelines, patent drawings, and historical advertising have helped to narrow the range when each type of tab was available. Some Initial diagnostic charts have been produced by Jobbe Wijnen (Pull Tab Archaeology). Fred has identified variations to the tabs Jobbe has classified. These tabs were found in archaeological contexts with specific date ranges. Fred is in the process of building a binder for can tabs found in the Midwestern United States along with any date range associations to improve their use as a diagnostic tool.