Bill D. (VA)
Silver Member
My buddy Dan and I got together last weekend to hit one of our old sites from last year where the corn had recently been cut. We spent most of the day wandering with little to show for our efforts, and got soaked in the process from the occasional downpours that kept cropping up. Near the end of our hunt we ended up in an area where we'd found a load of small iron last season, but quickly moved on due to the lack of finds. But this time we decided to hunker down and hit it slowly and more thoroughly, and some interesting early finds started showing up, mostly from the 1600s. This was not a surprise as our research had indicated a number of small but very early settlements in this area. Dan posted his finds earlier, but I'm just now getting around to mine. Not a lot to post for now,but we feel this small site has the potential to produce some great early relics not to mention possible trash pits. Toward the end of the hunt we found what we thought initially might be a pit, but we now believe is part of a very early foundation. (Sorry - no field pics due to the weather.) We'll definitely do some more investigation of that feature next time there. My best finds were 3 early buckles. The partial one shown in the pics below was a mid-1600s spectacle buckle with molded rosettes on the outer edge of each loop. The other 2 are classified as sub-annular buckles, and at first glance I thought they might be late colonial. Dan thought they were earlier, and he was right. The one with the narrow tang still in place dates to 1650-1720. The other one is a little unusual in that it has a stud at the end of a wide, flat tang. These were used as shoe buckles beginning around 1660 until the early 1700s. Also found a few pipe stems and a partial bowl, and based on the stem diameters they date from the early 1600s to the early 1700s. Eyeballed a nice little point as well which was an easy find against a backdrop of dark soil. Not sure when we'll make it back to this site as we have other irons in the fire, but I'm definitely looking forward to it.
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