INTRODUCTION

     First, recall the goals of the archaeological excavations at Hilltopper Shelter.  One research question concerns when the site was occupied.  Is Hilltopper Shelter a single component historic period site or a multicomponent site that also represents prehistoric occupations?  Can a specific range of years be specified for each occupation?  The other research question relates to the function of the site during each temporally-distinct occupation.  How was the site used during each occupation?

    In the previous labs we considered how lithic, ceramic/pottery, archaeobotanical, zooarchaeological, and osteological artifacts might be used to answer these questions.  In this lab, we examine how other historic artifacts can be used to address these questions. Our analysis will proceed with these questions in mind.  How can historic artifacts be used to determine time and period of occupation?  How can historic artifacts be used to determine site function?  Historic artifact analysis is considered in this lab.
 

HISTORIC ARTIFACT ANALYSIS

    Historic artifacts are typically classifed on the basis of raw material and/or function.  Raw material groups include clay, floral, faunal, glass, metal, rubber, lithic, coal, and others.

• Historic artifacts manufactured from clay include ceramics, brick, marbles, beads, pipes, and buttons.

• Floral or botanical historic artifacts include seeds, wood, charcoal, and pipes.

• Animal bone, teeth, antler, horn, hide, and shell remains and objects manufactured from such materials (e.g., brushes, pins, pipes, buttons, shoes, saddles) are often found in historic artifact assemblages.

• Glass artifacts are typically subdivided into container (curved) glass and window (flat) glass, but other objects like buttons, beads, eye glass lenses, and marbles were manufactured from glass.

• Metal artifacts include cutlery, pots, nails, hinges, wire, musket balls, buckles, rings, coins, keys, hoes, fishhooks, horseshoes, nuts, and swords.

• Buttons, combs, and other historic artifacts were manufactured from soft or vulcanized rubber.

• Gun flints are typical lithic historic artifacts.

• Kitchen Group
• ceramics
• wine bottles
• case bottles
• tumblers
• pharmaceutical bottles
• glassware
• tableware
• kitchenware

• Bone Group

• Architectural Group
• window glass
• nails
• spikes
• construction hardware
• door lock parts

• Furniture Group
• furniture hardware

• Arms Group
• ammunition
• gunflints and gunspalls
• gun parts and bullet molds

• Clothing Group
• buckles
• thimbles
• buttons
• scissors
• straight pins
• hook and eye fasteners
• bale seals
• glass beads

• Personal Group
• coins
• keys
• personal items

• Tobacco Pipe Group

• Activities Group
• construction tools
• farm tools
• toys
• fishing gear
• stub-stemmed pipes
• Colone-Indian pottery
• storage items
• ethnobotanical
• stable and barn
• miscellaneous hardware
• other
• military objects

GLASS ARTIFACTS

    Morphologically glass artifacts often are divided into curved and flat types. Functionally, glass artifacts are divided into two major groups -- container and window -- but other objects were manufactured from silica-based raw material. Remember, fragments of broken glass objects are called "shards."

    Container or curved glass objects are manufactured by hand or by machine.  Though both may involve the use of molds, hand-made or blown glass is uneven in thickness while machine-made glass is even in thickness.  Glass artifacts vary in color depending on elemental variability of the raw material.  For example, clear glass usually contains arsenic or lead, yellow glass contains selenium, amethyst glass contains manganese, and deep blue glass contains cobalt.  Some glass colors are chronologically diagnostic.  Container glass artifacts include bottles, wells, glassware, tumblers, jars, and vases.  Container glass objects may retain mold marks, rod marks, suction cup rings, maker's marks, labels, and other features.  Some features are chronologically diagnostic. With container glass, we often attempt to calculate the minimum number of vessels represented in an assemblage.

    Window glass is an important historic artifact type because it is chronologically diagnostic.  Because window glass produced by the cylinder method gets thicker over time and thickness is correlated with age, Moir (1987) developed a regression formula to estimate the date of a site based on an assemblage of window glass artifacts.  The date is given in calendar years with a standard deviation of ± 5 years.

• Date = (84.22 x average glass thickness) + 1712.2 years

NAIL ARTIFACTS

    Nails are architectural artifacts commonly recovered from historic archaeological sites.  Nails were commonly made of two forms of iron, wrought iron and cast steel.  Wrought iron has silica impurities that create a lineated or "woody" appearance to the metal.  Steel is a combinatin of iron and carbon; it has a circular or pitted appearance.

    Nails are divided into three groups based on manufacturing technique.  Wrought or hand-forged nails are made by nail smiths who hammer or forge nail rods into the desired product.  The shafts of wrought nails are square in cross section.  Machine-cut or cut nails are cut from strips of steel called nail plates.  The heads are either hand- or machine-stamped, the tips are typically rounded or flat, and the cross section is rectangular.  Wire or round nails are cut from drawn cylindrical rods of metal; they typically have pointed tips.

OCCUPATION HISTORY

     Container glass (such as color varieties), window glass (thickness), and nail (manufacturing types) artifacts may be used to estimate the period of occupation associated with Zone I of Hilltopper Shelter.
 

SITE FUNCTION

     Several issues related to site function may be addressed using historic artifacts recovered from the shelter.

    First, what activities may have occurred at the site?  Consider functional classifications of individual artifacts as well as the activity groups represented by the artifact assemblage.

    Second, did different activities take place at different parts of the site?  Consider the lateral distribution of different types of historic artifacts.

    ASSIGNMENT:  Using reference materials and comparative collections in the lab, identify the historic artifacts represented by each specimen.  Record the specimen number, provenience, raw material, functional type, metric attributes, and any other attributes you deem relevant to answering the research questions.
 

SITE REPORT

     The results of the historic artifact analysis must be described in the site report.  The historic artifact analysis section usually includes descriptive text, data tables, data figures, and quantitative analysis. I suggest paragraphs (with supporting figures and tables, as appropriate) describing the composition, distribution and preservation of the historic artifacts from the site.

    One or several paragraphs regarding the period of site occupation should follow the assemblage description.

    Follow this with paragraphs (plus supporting figures and tables) on the nature of site use during the historic occupation.  What types of activities occurred at the site?  Can you identify different activity areas?

    ASSIGNMENT:  Compose the historic artifact analysis section of the final site report.  Follow the stylistic format of the existing portions of the site report.  Click here for more details.
 

REFERENCES

Moir, Randall W.
1987    Socioeconomic and Chronometric Patterning of Window Glass.  In Historic Buildings, Material Culture, and People of the Prairie Margin, edited by R. W. Moir and D. H. Jurney, pp. 73-81.  Southern Methodist University, Dallas.

South, Stanley
1977    Method and Theory in Historical Archaeology.  Academic Press, New York.