Greg and Robert,
1. Yup, it's historic alright, pretty much by definition. As Dedie pointed out, horses were long gone before the Spanish brought them along to New Mexico in the 16th century. So, anything associated with horses in the New World is historic in time (leaving aside all the issues of "whose history?" and what constitutes history versus prehistory and so on . . .).
2. Your shoe is probably a machine-made shoe dating after about 1857. You can tell because of the fullerings (shallow trough, also known as the creases) where the nail heads were recessed, which are plainly visible in the first photo, appear to be pretty even and the nail holes appear to be pretty evenly spaced on each branch and between branches. Further support for that is found in the fact that the nail holes are rectangular rather than square. Notes from a conversation I had with Rick Morris, an archaeologist and farrier, back in the early '90s suggest, however, that machine-made shoes might not have been common in New Mexico before the 1870s, since the real market for machine-made shoes was created by the Civil War, which also largely monopolized available machine-made shoes. Further, I suspect, with no real documentary information to back it up, that for the first few years after the Civil War, most machine-made shoes that might have made it to New Mexico came with the Army, which would have been more likely to pay the cost of hauling blank shoes (really heavy) to New Mexico in wagons. I suspect that machine-made shoes were not common in New Mexico before the coming of the railroad, and probably took a while to spread out (am I being "diffusionist" here?) from the depot towns after that.
The photos suggest that the shoe has no heel calks and no toe calk -- it was a "blank shoe" and, unless the horse was remarkably well-stood and did not need correction, was not "customized" for the horse. However, the shoe is considerably worn on the inside heel and at the toe, so s/he could probably have benefitted from a little customizing of the shoe. The toe is the most commonly-worn part of the shoe and, once worn thin, cannot be rebuilt. The lack of a toe calk identifies the shoe as made for a saddle horse or perhaps a horse doing only light work. A shoe for a horse intended for consistent heavy work would probably have a toe calk, to slow down the toe wear. Heel wear suggests that the shoe was for a right foot. The shoe also, apparently, has no clips.
At least one nail hole seems to still have a piece of the nail present (or at least the hole is filled with something in the photo), but the clinch is not present. The other holes are open. Since you didn't tell us whether you found the shoe on a site or in isolation, it's a little hard to know how to interpret the significance of this information. If it was found in isolation, the shoe may have been "thrown" or it may have been intentionally removed by the rider. However, a thrown shoe frequently has at least some clinches in place, because the shoe was actually ripped from the hoof either by the horse stepping on its own horseshoe (in which case the shoe in question was probably on a front foot) or by another horse stepping on the shoe (in which case the shoe in question was probably on a hind foot). Still, the shoe was pretty worn and the nails may have also been pretty worn and loose and fallen out after the shoe was removed.
If the shoe was found on a site, it was more likely intentionally removed, probably in order to replace it because it was worn. In that case, it might be expected to have lost its nails during the removal process.
The shoe was at least 5.5 inches long, toe to heel, when new, and is now about 5.1 inches in width from the outsides of the branches. Not overly large
That's probably too much information than can actually be provided from two photos, and the standard disclaimers apply -- any spurious information is someone else's fault, what do I know about this stuff anyway? So, I'd recommend the following references (courtesy of Rick Morris, of whose whereabouts I have no knowledge -- does anyone else on HistArch know where Rick is these days?):
Berge, Dale
1980 Simpson Springs Station: Historical Archaeology in Western Utah. Museum of Peoples and Cultures, Brigham Young University, Provo.
Chappell, Edward
1973 A Study of Horseshoes in the Department of Archaeology, Colonial Williamsburg. In Fine Artifact Studies. The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, Williamsburg.
Heymering, Henry
1990 On the Horse's Foot, Shoe, and Shoeing: The Bibliographic Record; and a Brief Timeline History of Horseshoeing. St. Eloy Publishing, Cascade.
Morris, Rick
1987 Horseshoe Economics: To Shoe or Not to Shoe, That is the Issue. Nevada Historical Society Quarterly, 30(4):304-315.
1988 The Life History of the Horseshoe Nail. Nevada Archaeologist, 6(2):23-27
1988 What the Horse Left Behind: The Archaeological Study of Horseshoes. Unpublished M.A. Thesis, University of Nevada, Reno.
1989 The History of Horseshoes in North America, Part I. Anvil, 14(2):25-42.
1989 The History of Horseshoes in North America, Part II. Anvil, 14(3):38-41.
?
1991 The Complete Book of Horseshoe Patents for the United States: 1882 to Present. University of Nevada Press, Reno.
Payden, Louis
1978 Smoothshod-Roughshod. In History and Prehistory of Grass Valley, Nevada, edited by C. W. Clewbow, H. F. Wells, and R. D. Ambro. Monograph VII. Institute of Archaeology, University of California, Los Angeles.
For more information than you want, see: www.horseshoes.com/advice.
Knock yourself out.
Jeff
Jeffrey L. Boyer, RPA
Office of Archaeological Studies
P.O. Box 2087
Santa Fe, New Mexico 87504
tel: 505.827.6343
fax: 505.827.3904
e-mail: [log in to unmask]
"It might look a bit messy now, but just you come back in 500 years time." --Terry Pratchett
________________________________
From: HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY on behalf of Greg Johnson
Sent: Tue 11/15/2005 4:28 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Horseshoe help
A colleague of mine asked me to post this on HISTARCH for him. The following is his message.
A horseshoe was found on a survey in northern New Mexico near El Moro National Monument. First, does it date to the historical period? Second, are there any other potentially diagnostic features? Pictures of the horseshoe can be viewed at http://www.sricrm.com/histarch/DSC01763.GIF and http://www.sricrm.com/histarch/DSC0174.GIF.
Thank you,
Robert Heckman
Statistical Research, Inc.
Tucson
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