The suggestion that charcoal-making references should be found in the
ironmaking literature is correct. The NPS Harpers Ferry facility has a
great deal of information, and there is a pretty good booklet published
by the Hopewell Furnace NPS operation in Pa.
New England should be peppered with charcoal making sites. Unfortunately,
there has been no general study, anywhere to my knowledge. A typical iron
furnace includes about 5,000 acres of charcoal land, where charcoal pits
are spaced very close together. Unfortunately, nearly all the charcoal
making sites in the Eastern US have been at least partially destroyed.
For perspective, one of the best works is Victor Rolando's book on the
history and archeology of Vermont's iron, charcoal and lime industries,
called "200 years of Soot and Sweat," but it deals with everything from
simple pits through complex industrial kilns.
Charcoal was such an important fuel in early America, but there has been
precious little archeological study of charcoal-making complexes. I blame
the nature of CRM for this inadequacy. When we get a CRM project, we are
given a tightly defined, and generally small, area to survey. So we get
to look at a site with a few dozen charcoal pits at most. In order to
understand charcoal making, you need to see all the pits on an ironmaking
tract, and you need to work out the production system that the pit
complexes represent.
Sorry, I am getting into a diatribe. See my article in IA.
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