Laurie,

Thanks for the response and publication suggestions.  The general consensus 
is that our artifact is part of a coffin thumbscrew.  The artifact was 
recovered from a mass burial trench dating to 1866.  Seventy-six bodies (all 
enlisted men) were interred in the feature.  Accounts, contemporary with the 
burial, indicate that the bodies were placed in simple pine boxes.  The 
military used the cemetery between 1866 and 1868.  The bodies were exhumed 
in 1888 and reburied at a national cemetery.  Homestead burials, dating to 
the 1880s, are known to exist at the site, which is now an alfalfa field. 
The real question is if the thumbscrew is contemporary with the military use 
of the cemetery or dates to the later homestead interments.  The screw may 
also have been dropped when the military bodies were exhumed and reboxed in 
1888.  There seems to be some uncertainty among researchers as to when 
thumbscrews were first used on coffins.  The sources I have consulted 
suggest that the crews were not used until the 1870s.

Do you have any references for when thumbscrews were first used on coffins?

Can you provide references for 1860s coffin hardware catalogs?

Kevin

Kevin O'Dell
Principal Investigator & President
ACR Consultants, Inc.
1423 O'Dell Court
Sheridan, WY 82801
T: 307-673-5966
F: 307-673-4908
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----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Burgess, Laurie" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, May 12, 2010 7:36 AM
Subject: Re: Funerary Artifact ID Question


> It does look like typical coffin hardware from the second half of the 19th 
> century: a thumbscrew that most likely would have been inserted into an 
> escutcheon plate--the escutcheon may have had matching design elements. 
> But is there any other evidence of coffin burials in this mass grave? 
> Nails?  Any other hardware? Tacks, with white metal or cu alloy heads?
>
> Check out the following publications to get an overview of coffin 
> hardware--and also James Davidson's recent work.  There are also many 
> coffin hardware catalogues out there which can narrow your date range 
> substantially.
>
> Laurie
>
>
> Bell, Edward
> 1990 The Historical Archaeology of Mortuary Behavior: Coffin Hardware from 
> Uxbridge, Massachusetts.  Historical Archaeology 24(3):54-78.
>
> Garrow, Patrick
> 1987 A Preliminary Seriation of Coffin Hardware Forms in Nineteenth and 
> Twentieth Century Georgia.  Early Georgia 15(1-2):19-45.
>
> Hacker-Norton, Debi and Michael Trinkley
> 1984 Remember Man Thou Art Dust: Coffin Hardware of the Twentieth Century. 
> Research Series 2. Chicora Foundation, Inc., Columbia, South Carolina.
>
> Kogon, Stephen L. and Robert G. Mayer
> 1995 Analyses of Coffin Hardware from Unmarked Burials Former Wesleyan 
> Methodist Church, Weston, Ontario.  North American Archaeologist 
> 16(2):133-162.
>
> Little, Barbara, Kim M. Lanphear and Douglas W. Owsley
> 1992 Mortuary Display and Status in a Nineteenth-Century Anglo-American 
> Cemetery in Manassas, Virginia.  American Antiquity, 57(3):397-418.
>
> Laurie Burgess
> Associate Chair
> Department of Anthropology
> National Museum of Natural History
> Smithsonian Institution
> MRC 112
> P.O. Box 37012
> 10th and Constitution Avenue NW
> Washington, DC 20013-7012
> (202) 633-1915
> [log in to unmask]