Of course, a simpler answer might lie in the remote outposts where necessity
requires local manufacture of buttons. Soldiers tend to be pragmatic in
meeting needs, such as cutting button blanks from cow ribs and drilling single
holes. Where supply lines are better, single hole buttons probably would not be
found. Civilians would also be pragmatic in local production, especially
when drilling more than one hole could cause the button to break.
I might add that in San Diego, there is some evidence Native Americans
produced buttons from pottery sherds. At least one account reported pottery
buttons were used to secure rabbit fur robes.
Ron May
Legacy 106, Inc.
In a message dated 12/23/2008 6:13:20 A.M. Pacific Standard Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:
Hi Carl,
One-hole discs have been recovered from both military and domestic sites
during the 18th and early 19th century sites in North America though the
technology seems to stem from Roman settlements of long ago.
"One-hole" buttons/discs were made through the use of center-pronged
drill bits. Rather than being produced for a specific use/purpose, the
center hole seems to be a by-product of manufacture, which was formed as
the lesser side prong of the bit scored and cut the outer shape of the
button through the material. The center hole served to align the
material with the bit while turning (e.g., when a hand-drill/lathe was
used the apparatus would score the top side of the material until the
center prong [which is longer] poked all the way through the material).
Then the material was flipped over and the bit was aligned/threaded
through the hole on the opposite face so that the scoring of the side
prong could continue cutting the disc through the slab (see MacGregor
1985; Klippel and Schroedl 1999). Hinks (1995) also covers one-hole
disc manufacturing in his volume on 18th century buttons, an ambitious
and informative account.
Center prong bit technology was also used to the production "five-hole"
buttons. In recent conference papers, I have referred to this mode of
production as "centrally-aligned" as opposed to "non-centrally aligned"
("four-", "three-", and "two-" holed examples with no center hole),
which makes use of a vise to position the material during manufacture
rather than a center prong.
The most recent paper I gave on this topic was at the 2006 SAAs in
Puerto Rico called "Utilitarian Bone Button Classification: A
Technological Approach", which discusses the variations in bone button
manufacture, in addition to incorporating observations from several bone
button assemblages from the Southern Appalachians and the Northern
Plains. In this paper, I used both photo-micrographs and scanning
electron microscope images for illustration of tooling mark phenomena.
If anyone is interested in a pdf version of my paper with slides, please
contact me off-list.
Happy Holidays!
Paul
Hinks, Stephen
1995 A Structural and Functional Analysis of Eighteenth Century Buttons.
Volumes in Historical Archaeology 32. South Carolina Institute of
Archaeology and Anthropology, The University of South Carolina,
Columbia.
Klippel Walter E. and Gerald Schroedl
1999 African Slave Craftsmen and Single-hole Bone Discs from Brimstone
Hill, St.Kitts, West Indies. Post-Medieval Archaeology 33:222-232.
MacGregor, Arthur
1985 Bone, Antler, Ivory, & Horn: The Technology of Skeletal Materials
Since the Roman Period. Croom Helm Publishing, London; and Barnes and
Noble Books,
Totowa.
Paul M. Matchen, M.A., R.P.A.
Staff Archaeologist/Principal Investigator
TRC
505 E. Huntland Drive, Suite 250
Austin, TX 78752
512.684.3147 phone
512.329.8750 fax
512.964.9987 cell
[log in to unmask]
-----Original Message-----
From: HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of
HISTARCH automatic digest system
Sent: Tuesday, December 23, 2008 1:00 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: HISTARCH Digest - 20 Dec 2008 to 22 Dec 2008 (#2008-283)
There are 10 messages totalling 544 lines in this issue.
Topics of the day:
1. One-Hole Bone Buttons (5)
2. Electronic Symposium SHA 2009 (4)
3. 1772 Button? Question
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Mon, 22 Dec 2008 10:31:47 -0500
From: Carl Steen <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: One-Hole Bone Buttons
Hi all.
I have found numerous examples of one hole bone buttons at Fort Johnson,
SC (38CH69.com) along with blanks and fragments indicating local
manufacture. The context dates between 1790 and 1810, but some earlier
ceramics were seen.
Stan South found these in Rev War to War of 1812 contexts at Fort
Moultrie, and Judy Bense reported them in her late period (1750-1821) in
Pensacola. All of these are military sites. My 1830s to 1860s contexts
have machine made bone buttons (4-5 hole).
Has anyone looked into this practice? Is it a military thing primarily?
I've seen them on domestic sites, but not with evidence of manufacture.
Google was not extremely helpful...
?thanks, Carl Steen
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 22 Dec 2008 09:28:06 -0800
From: Susan Walter <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: One-Hole Bone Buttons
One hole? Are there any shanks present? One hole in the center is
often
for a pinhead shank with a loop underneath to sew through. See Luscomb,
Sally C. The Collector's Encyclopedia of Buttons, 1999 Schiffer
publishing
Co., Atglen, PA.: pages 153 & 176-177.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Carl Steen" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Monday, December 22, 2008 7:31 AM
Subject: One-Hole Bone Buttons
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