hi Jeff--
I can tell you that at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, a small two-fire finery
forge dating to the 18th century, there were found in the building, in
excavations carried out in the 1930s, what were described as "cannon balls"
and "part of a cannon" (unfortunately the artifacts themselves are long
gone). While of course Valley Forge is a site where it wouldn't be surprising
to find ordnance anyway (and control of the stratigraphic context was
non-existent), the numerous finds of other waste cast iron (wedge gates and
sprues, bad castings) might suggest that these pieces were indeed intended to
be charged to the forge for refining. There was no possibility of casting
having been taking place at Valley Forge. I hope you'll share anything you
hear on this interesting question.
 
Helen Schenck
Helen Schenck Associates
Mt. Laurel, NJ
 
On August 28 Jeff Morris wrote:
>>
I am currently undertaking research on a pair of British 17th century heavy
iron forges, among the archaeologial material that has been used to date the
sites are examples of cannon balls, said to date from the English civil war.
My query is thus, has anyone undertaken research (or knows of any research)
that deals with the disposal of weapons and ordnance in the post-medieval
period following conflicts (what happened to surplus/spent weapons and
ammunition following the American war of Independence for example?)  Are the
cannon balls found on the site possibly a residual remain of a scrap pile or
does the original hypothesis that they represent items made on the site
still hold true.<<