Will, you should check out the work of Rick Morris, especially his thesis, "What the Horse Left Behind: The Archaeological Study of Horseshoes" (University of Nevada, Reno, 1988). Rick worked with OCA on a huge project in western NM and Arizona (I forget the name but folks at OCA will know; ask Pat Hogan) and wrote some for the historical archaeology volume. I suspect that OCA has a copy of Rick's thesis and the big project report. Perhaps that will get you started. Please keep us all informed of your progress.

Jeff

Jeffrey L. Boyer, RPA
Supervisory Archaeologist/Project Director
Office of Archaeological Studies, Museum of New Mexico

  *   The Center for New Mexico Archaeology
  *   PO Box 2087
  *   Santa Fe, New Mexico 87504
  *   tel: 505.476.4426
  *   e-mail: [log in to unmask]

"There comes a time in every rightly-constructed boy's life when he has a raging desire to go somewhere and dig for hidden treasure."  -- Mark Twain, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer


________________________________________
From: HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY [[log in to unmask]] on behalf of William Taylor [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Wednesday, March 05, 2014 10:25 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Dating farrier's nails

Howdy!

I'm working on a small project that involves some horse hoof trimmings
found on a glacier in Alaska, which are suspected to date to the Gold Rush
and the turn of the century. However, they could also be of more recent
origin. The trimmings were found with farrier's nails, but no shoe.

I know that sometimes very detailed typologies/chronologies have been made
for other types of construction nail, but not sure if such a thing exists
for horseshoeing equipment.If anyone on the listserv has experience with
nails like this, or can help point me towards some further reading, it
would be greatly appreciated! Pictures available on request.

Cheers,

Will

--
William Taylor, M.S.
Ph.D. Student, Department of Anthropology
University of New Mexico
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