Dating nails archaeology
In the colonies had produced only one-seventieth of the world's iron, but by they produced one-seventh, with pig and bar production exceeding that of England and Wales. Bar iron was not made, however, in the United States until when a plant was started in Plumstock, Pa.
Already in a machine had been developed by Perkins in Massachusetts which could cut strips and head nails in one operation to make the first machine-cut nails. By the 18th Century wrought nails were fashioned from metal plates rolled to the required thickness and slit by slitting rollers into nail rods and "split rods" of various sizes depending on the type of nail to be made. The rods were drawn to a point on the anvil by hammering, then clamped at the untapered end by a vice and struck to form a head.
This was generally done hot. Even after the nailmaking machine was invented in , heads were generally formed by hand-hammering until about From until machine cut nails were made by setting the knife on a permanent diagonal, then the plate was reversed, cutting nails with alternate heads and points.
Larger heads still had to be hammered. After , a machine was developed by which the blade was switched through an angle, cutting nails without turning the plate. About the time that the first nailmaking machine was invented in United States, John Bigelow opened a small workshop in the St. Laurent suburb of Montreal to become Canada's first nail manufacturer and founder of a company which later became part of The Steel Company of Canada, Limited. The nail was particularly precious at this time and was a much-prized commodity.
Some men in the American colonies were known to burn down old houses, with and without the owner's permission, to collect nails from the charred ruins. Captain Cook's sailors pulled them from their ships to trade them to the South Sea Islanders. On the anvil each nail had to be hammered and shaped by hand from bits of iron so that the nails were often so hard to come by that builders still often laboriously fitted wooden pegs. The invention in Massachusetts of a machine for cutting square nails from flat red-hot strips of iron was an important advance in the industry and was soon to be used in England as well as in Massachusetts to expand production.
John Bigelow survived the competition of his counterparts by using one of the primitive American machines himself. It was run by horsepower and cut the nails from the iron automatically, but the nails still had to be headed by hand and he still brought in his raw material in iron hoops from the wholesalers. It is pointed out that the officers of the two opposing armies in the War of probably had their horses shod with the help of Bigelow's nails. Kilbourn points out that "war was not allowed to interfere, except for the briefest periods, with anything so important as the flow of the Richelieu valley trade and the regular functioning of customs officers on either side of the river border.
Dove's analysis of the nails from Rocky Mountain House appears in Table He considers wrought iron nails to date to and before, cut nails to date after , and stamped nails to date between and These dates are pertinent to eastern Canada and the United States, but the occurrence of wrought iron nails at Rocky Mountain House, , obviously indicates a continued use of this nail type well into the 19th century in the Canadian West.
Dove's analysis in Table 11, various observations and correlations can be made. At Rocky Mountain House wrought iron nails are only slightly more numerous than cut iron nails. Of a total of 89 nails identified according to mode of manufacture, nine different techniques are represented. Thirty-eight nails are hand wrought; 3 are wrought common; 3 are both wrought and cut; 1 is wrought and machine finished; 1 is wrought and early stamped; 31 are cut; 8 are cut common; 2 are entirely produced by early machine, and 2 are entirely stamped specimens.
This data indicates that not all of the nails at the fort can be attributed to on-site manufacture. Forty-eight specimens are products manufactured by machine elsewhere and subsequently brought to the fort. The types of nail heads represented can be synthesized and clearly rosehead nails predominate at the site.
Of 86 analyzable specimens having heads, roseheads account for Next in numerical frequency are 17 flatheaded nails; 7 csk. When nailhead forms are tallied together with their mode of manufacture, the following correlations occur: The near equal occurrence of wrought and cut roseheads is noteworthy. Other correlations show that all of the wrought common, wrought and cut, wrought and machine, and wrought and early stamped nails in the collection are roseheads. In addition, 5 of the 8 cut common nails are roseheads.
Table 12 gives the complete list of nailhead-mode of manufacture correlations. The metallurgical examination of the Rocky Mountain House nails indicates that the nails are extremely soft and produced from puddled iron. Dove selected five representative nails, 13, 41, , and , for metallurgical examination. Number 13 is a flathead machine-made 7d wrought iron nail; 41 is a hand wrought rosehead with chisel point; is an early machine-made large rectangular headed nail; is a flathead, 10d wrought iron nail; and represents a portion of a cut nail made for heavy driving.
Longitudinal microsections were cut from the heads of and , photographed and then etched with 2 per cent nital acid. The structure of sample No. The general grain size was There is no doubt that this material is puddled iron from the nature of the inclusions. It is probable also that Sample No. The approximate tensile strengths of these materials referred to the Rockwell B hardness readings are shown beside the values so that you will see that these nails were extremely soft in comparison to normal nails of these dimensions which would have tensile strengths in the order of , to , psr.
This is characteristic of early nails, particularly those produced from puddled iron. The nail sizes from Rocky Mountain House have an observable correlation with different types of nails. For instance, the wrought rosehead nails have by far the greatest range in size with 3d, 4d, 6d, 7d, 8d, 9d, 10d, 16d, 20d, and 30d sizes represented.
Cut rosehead nails, on the other hand, are restricted to smaller sizes: The cut flatheaded nails are similarly of small size except for one large specimen: Wrought flatheaded nails are larger at 7d, 10d, and 16d. This general pattern of cut nails being restricted to smaller sizes may well be a reflection of the infancy of the cut nail production. In the analysis tables three nails, , and , have been noted "fire.
There is evidence that these samples were exposed to fire. This is evident from the small amounts of coating of red iron oxide which have appeared and which are essentially a high temperature product. This might be of some guidance to you in learning what went on in various areas. The fired nails do offer interesting data. Specimen is a flatheaded cut nail dating from the interior western end of building II.
Specimen , a rosehead nail cut between comes from pit 2 immediately northwest of building II. The third specimen, , is a flat rectangular head nail, cut common, and dating ; it comes from pit 6 within building III. The distribution of these three specimens covers a large triangle between pit 2 and buildings II and III. There is consistency in their dates and proveniences suggest burning during the Hudson's Bay Company occupation.
The two wrought csk. These nails exhibit a peculiar composite round and square shank Fig. Both "special" type specimens date early and come from the interior of building I. This building is believed to date to the North West Company occupation.
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- Parks Canada - Canadian Historic Sites: Occasional Papers in Archaeology and History No. 6.
- All about nails… – MSU Campus Archaeology Program.
A further over-all view of the nail distributions within the fort is informative. It is proposed here to list the various features within the fort, together with the types of nails found in them and their dates. No attempt is made to date a building on the basis of a single nail. Five nails recovered from this floored building all date early or pre Nails 75, 86, 87, and are from the building's interior.
Dating nails archaeology
One of the nails, , has not been identified, but the remaining specimens are all wrought nails. As mentioned previously, the two 9d csk. Nineteen loose nails are from this floored building. Ten dating after 64, 68, 70, , , , , , and , have a random distribution over the entire building. These include four cut rosehead, three cut flathead, one wrought and cut rosehead, one wrought and machine rosehead, and one large head cut nail.
The six nails of pre date , , , , and , are all from the vicinity of the double-hearth fireplace westward. Two of these nails are wrought rose, one is wrought flat, one is wrought part head, one is wrought small, and one is the wrought csk. Three other specimens remain unidentified. The distribution of the early nails restricted to the western end of building II as opposed to the wider over-all distribution of the later nails is of note.
This is highly suggestive of the presence of an earlier structure in what later became the western end of the Hudson's Bay Company building. Building II Pit 4. The two nails from pit 4, and , are both wrought common roseheads of 7d size.
They date early, prior to Building II Pit 5. Three nails, , and , came from this pit. The one identifiable specimen, , is a large roundhead nail produced by early machine methods. It thus dates Building II pit The four nails from this pit, , , and , all appear to date after but prior to , except for specimen It is wrought csk.
The three other nails are all cut roseheads. Building III Pit 6. All nails from the interior of this unfloored building were from pit 6.
Nail is the only unidentifined specimen of the 15 nails, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , and All nails but five, , , , , and , date between and The five nails of pre date include two wrought rose nails one from the in. The post nails include two cut common rose, one cut rose, two cut flat, one cut common flat, one cut flat rectangular, and a large rectangular early machine made nail. This latter specimen is from the in.
The Dating of Iron Nails
This floored building which extended across space within both the original and the extended fort produced only six analyzable nails, , , , , and Three are early varieties and three nails post-date Of the three nails of pre date, two are wrought rosehead brads and the other nail is a wrought rose.
These three early specimens are all from proveniences within the area of the old fort's boundary which was later covered by building IV with the expansion of the fort. The three later nail types include a cut rose, a cut flat and a wrought and cut rose. These data suggest three possible explanations. The first is the probable salvaging of nails from the original fort for use in constructing building IV; second, the early nails are not a part of building IV but are from the earlier fort, and third, both the early and later types of nails date contemporaneously in this context.
This ill-defined floorless building produced five loose nails. These are specimens , , , and Three of the nail types date early and two are of later post vintage. The early specimens include a wrought rosehaed nail, a wrought flathead nail and a wrought headless form.
These are referred to as Cut Nail Type B. Before Hand-Wrought Nails. History of Nail Making. Bird User Inactive Registered: The machine flipped the bar after each cut in order to ensure even sides.
The later nail types are both cut rose varieties.