Get the Lead Out: Towards Identifying Ammunition on Eighteenth- and Early Nineteenth-Century Battlefields and Settlements

LAMAR Institute Publication Series,

Report Number 205

Grant Number

P16AP00371

Authors

• Daniel T. Elliott
• Michael Seibert
• The LAMAR Institute, Inc. Savannah, Georgia, 2017

Executive Summary

This report details the results of the 2017 Get the Lead Out! Workshop that was conducted by the LAMAR Institute and National Park Service in June, 2017. It also incorporates data from an earlier 2015 workshop, as well as elemental data collected by researchers since 2012. Small arms ammunition in America, throughout the eighteenth-and early nineteenth-centuries, consisted of round soft-metal balls. These were mostly lead, although archaeologists have documented other metals such as pewter and silver as additives. Available small arms and related ammunition varied by military unit, and included pistols, rifles, trade guns, carbines, fowlers, and large caliber wall guns, as well as American, French, Spanish and English weapons. Macroscopic identification of associated bullets alone limits battlefield interpretations. Seibert and Elliott present a formalized regimen of lead ball analyses that combines elemental characterization (portable X-Ray Fluorescence, or pXRF) along with traditional descriptions and quantitative measurements. Traditional analysis documents diameter, weight, firing condition (impact evidence, rifling, worming, ramrod impact, casting evidence), alterations (chewing, cutting, carving), other post-depositional damage (rodent gnawing), and archaeological context. The elemental information collected by pXRF shows promise in identifying ore sources, contaminants introduced, firing condition, age, and military association. If combined with other data from lead ore sources, including isotope studies, baseline information can be developed for comparison among battlefield assemblages and incorporated into a global dataset with the purpose of better understanding the geographic distribution of military supplies and military strategy at macro global and regional levels, as well as at micro-battlefield levels.

Acknowledgements

This project was funded in part by a 2016 PTT Grant from the National Center for Preservation Technology and Training (NCPTT), National Park Service. Thanks to NCPTT archaeologist and grants manager Tad Britt and contracting officer Mary F. Striegel. Thanks also to representatives Jonathan Knapp, Kimberley Russell, and Dave Kiefer from Bruker Corporation who attended the workshop. They provided equipment, important technical assistance and general theoretical guidance as our workshop progressed.

Thanks to the workshop instructors, who included Daniel Elliott, Travis Jones, Center for Applied Isotope Studies, University of Georgia, Bruce Kaiser, Michael Seibert and Dan Sivilich. Thanks to all the participants in the 2015 and 2017 workshops. Participants in the 2015 session included: John Allison, P.T. Ashlock, Dawn Chapman Ashlock, Tad Britt, Daniel Elliott, Bruce Kaiser, Lisa Powell and Michael Seibert. Participants in the 2017 workshop included: P.T. Ashlock, Dawn Chapman Ashlock, Daniel Battle, Greg Beavers, Scott Butler, Charles R. Cobb, Daniel Elliott, Rita Folse Elliott, Ramona Grunden, Cheryl Frankum, Tammy Herron, Lindsey Hinson, Andrew Hyder, Travis Jones, Bruce Kaiser, Dave Kiefer, Jonathan Knapp, Jim Legg, Ryan McNutt, Lydia Moreton, James Page, Lisa Powell, John Roberson, Kimberly Russell, Michael Seibert, Dan Sivilich, Michelle Sivilich, Steven Smith and Stacey Whitacre.

I. Introduction

This monograph presents the findings from early work and two Portable XRay Fluorescence (pXRF) workshops that addressed the elemental composition of round ball ammunition from early sites in North America.
Previous study of Eighteenthcentury lead (round ball) artifacts from archaeological sites have explored various physical aspects of these objects (Sivilich 1996, 2004, 2016; Branstner 2008).

A December 2015 pXRF Workshop explored the elemental composition of round ball ammunition from several archaeological contexts in the southeastern United States (Elliott 2016a). Preliminary investigations on this topic by researchers with the National Park Service, Southeast Archeological Center and the LAMAR Institute demonstrated the potential for pXRF to distinguish bullets within battlefields and between different archaeological sites. Using a Bruker Tracer III handheld unit in 2015, archaeologist Daniel Elliott (LAMAR Institute) sampled several hundred round balls gathered from Revolutionary War battlefields in Georgia and South Carolina, from Colonial and Early Federal fortifications in Georgia and fromNative American village sites in Georgia. This preliminarywork also has shown that pXRF technology works well when applied to older museum collections. Bruce Kaiser processed Elliott’s data and determined that significant elemental differences were manifest in the various assemblages. The cultural meaning of these differences remains an active discussion and the proposed workshop will build on this early work. For example, was the addition of tin and antimony intentional to improve the ballistic performance, or was it simply done of necessity in the absence of reliable and abundant lead sources? Are nonlead additives linked to specificmilitary groups or armies, or to specific weapon types? Larger samples froma variety of sites were required to assess the full utility of this technology, however, and participants recognized that another workshop was a logical step in pursuing this research.

The LAMAR Institute organized a largerworkshop thatwas funded by a 2016 PTT Grant (Grant Number P16AP00371) from the National Center for Preservation Technology and Training (NCPTT), which was entitled, “Get the Lead Out: Elemental analysis of 18th and early 19th century ammunition in eastern North America.” This workshop was held on June 29 and 30, 2017. The NCPTTworkshop, whichwas held at the Coastal Georgia Center in Savannah, Georgia brought together archaeologists, museum curators, and physicists to explore the elemental composition of small arms ammunition of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries in North America. Workshop attendees employed portable XRay fluorescence (pXRF) technology on small samples from their respective archaeological study sites or museum collections. Attendees were guided by physicists who are highly trained in the theory and expectations, methods and data processing of these pXRF datasets in the analysis of their collections. The results from the workshop form the basis of a continuing elemental database on early ammunition. This database is intended to distinguish between the elemental composition of ballistic artifacts. As the dataset grows in its variety and sophistication, other topics, such as sourcing, may be approached using this information.

The Problem

Small arms ammunition from the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries is difficult to identify since it consists of round metal balls of varying sizes. Unlike later ballistics from the Civil War, few attributes serve as clues to the people who possessed the ammunition. While attributes such as bullet diameter (caliber) and weight offer some indication of the weapon types from which the bullets were fired, many gaps remain in defining these enigmatic metal artifacts. Furthermore, bullets that have been fired and heavily impacted are often rendered unrecognizable for traditional analysis. With pXRF researchers are offered a significant advance in artifact identification which, when combined with other artifact attributes, can greatly enhance the understanding of a bullet assemblage and its historical context on the battlefields and military encampments.

Archaeologists’ expectations for pXRF in the study of round ball ammunitionwere great, albeit naïve. We had hopes of using this technology as a sourcing tool. That task is better served by isotope analysis, which is not covered by pXRF. Elemental analysis with Bruker technology does provide useful information, however, about the composition of lead ball assemblages from various sites that eventually may provide important insights into human behavior not available by other means.

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