You’ll find British colonial artifacts spanning hand-forged iron hardware from blacksmith shops, imported brass fixtures, and counterfeit Continental currency that undermined post-war commerce. Archaeological excavations reveal trade-specific concentrations—printer’s type, button-maker’s shell fragments, and wharf workers’ medicine bottles—documenting occupational patterns across 18th-century settlements. Military relics include Pattern 1776 rifles and French Charleville muskets, while Spanish coins and Massachusetts Pine Tree shillings illustrate colonial currency complexities. These material remnants preserve how colonists navigated imperial restrictions while developing economic autonomy, and further examination discloses the intricate networks connecting everyday objects to revolutionary transformation.
Key Takeaways
- Hand-forged iron hardware including strap hinges and nails were essential colonial building components crafted by local blacksmiths.
- Spanish pieces-of-eight and Massachusetts Pine Tree shillings circulated as primary currencies in British colonial America.
- Philadelphia excavations recovered 82,000 artifacts from privy shafts, documenting trade-specific concentrations like printer’s type and button-making materials.
- British Pattern 1776 Infantry Rifles and imported brass drawer pulls from England represent typical military and domestic colonial artifacts.
- Horse equipment with decorative tooling patterns signified social standing, while archaeological evidence documents early frontier mobility needs.
Building Components and Hardware From Colonial Sites
While modern construction relies on standardized components mass-produced in factories, colonial-era buildings depended entirely on materials forged by hand in local blacksmith shops.
You’ll find colonial hardware dominated by cast iron, shaped through labor-intensive processes that made each piece unique. Blacksmiths hand-hammered strap hinges for doors and shutters, while H and HL hinges became widespread architectural features.
Building materials included brass imported from England for drawer pulls, though iron remained prevalent for its durability. Suffolk latches and rim locks secured entries with simple, elegant forms derived from European patterns. Decorative escutcheons with elaborate designs were placed on lock back plates to enhance the aesthetic appeal of these functional elements.
Hand-forged nails—each individually crafted—constituted essential fasteners before machine-made alternatives emerged. The distinctive appearance from hand-hammering made these pieces readily identifiable among colonial artifacts. Shutter dogs, thumb latches, and heavy butt hinges exemplified the functional designs that characterized this autonomous era of construction, when artisans possessed complete control over their craft.
Horse Equipment and Smoking Implements
Beyond the iron hardware that secured colonial structures, metalworking skills extended to fabricating the implements that enabled frontier mobility.
You’ll find evidence of sophisticated saddle craftsmanship in archaeological records from Jamestown, where osteological analysis reveals bridling fractures in horse premolars and asymmetric metapodial cross-sections indicating load-bearing use.
Colonial saddlers assembled components on imported beech-wood trees, creating specialized designs—sidesaddles, postilions, portmanteaus—that reflected emerging equestrian heritage.
By 1609, John Smith documented thriving horses in Virginia, necessitating leather tack for traversing challenging terrains westward.
These artifacts demonstrate how “horse furniture” evolved from rudimentary harnesses into essential equipment featuring gulleted spines, raised pommels, and cantles designed for long-hour comfort.
French-supplied saddles during the Revolutionary War further document this craft’s strategic importance in securing colonial autonomy.
The Starving Time winter of 1609-1610 left archaeological evidence of equid consumption, with 82% of recovered horse and donkey specimens exhibiting cut marks, chop marks, and spiral fractures from marrow extraction.
Ornate leather bridles and saddles often incorporated decorative tooling patterns that signified the owner’s social standing within colonial communities.
Currency and Commercial Instruments
You’ll find that colonial commerce depended on a complex array of currencies requiring constant verification and authentication. Spanish pieces-of-eight, Portuguese coins, and French specie circulated alongside colonial paper money and commodity-based tender, each demanding careful weighing to confirm precious metal content before acceptance. Colonists often cut pieces from eight real coins to create smaller denominations for everyday transactions.
The authentication process extended beyond currency to include sealing wax and signet rings, which merchants and officials used to verify the legitimacy of correspondence and commercial documents in an era vulnerable to counterfeiting and fraud. Counterfeit continentals became particularly problematic after the American victory, flooding the colonies and undermining confidence in paper currency.
Colonial Coins in Circulation
Throughout the 17th and 18th centuries, Spanish dollars dominated colonial commerce as the de facto currency of British America, prized for their consistent silver content and recognizable design.
You’ll find that colonial currency reflected both imperial restrictions and American ingenuity. Massachusetts Bay’s Pine Tree shillings, first struck in 1652, deliberately bore uniform dates to circumvent English prohibitions on colonial minting.
Later, Continental dollars emerged as symbols of independence, featuring designs by Benjamin Franklin. Nova Constellatio coppers, produced in England during 1783-1785, represented the first widely circulated coins bearing distinctly American imagery.
These diverse currencies—from Spanish pieces of eight to Portuguese moidores—circulated freely despite England’s attempts at monetary control, creating a decentralized system that embodied colonial self-sufficiency and resistance to imperial economic constraints. Queen Anne’s proclamation in 1704 aimed to standardize foreign coin values across the colonies, reflecting concerns that varying valuations were undermining imperial trade policy. The Fugio Copper pieces, issued by the authority of the United States and featuring Franklin’s “Mind Your Business” motto alongside thirteen interlocking rings, became the first official American coins despite their initial public rejection.
Weighing Precious Metal Currency
Since colonists brought minimal precious metals from Europe, they developed sophisticated weighing and valuation practices to assess the diverse foreign coins flowing through maritime trade networks.
You’ll find merchants bid prices above official British rates to attract specie, with Spanish silver pieces trading at 9s. to 9s. 3d. despite legal rates of 8s. per ounce.
Currency scarcity forced each colony to establish independent tender laws and coin ratings, creating disparate valuations—a Spanish dollar held different values across colonial boundaries.
This coin valuation complexity intensified when merchants publicly defied Parliament’s 1708 Act, which attempted uniform foreign coin rates.
Maryland even stealthily revised Queen Anne’s proclamation rates in 1753, demonstrating colonial resistance to imperial monetary control and asserting economic autonomy. Merchants often cut the Spanish Dollar into eight pieces to make change, creating the fractional denominations needed for smaller transactions. The shortage of specie led colonists to rely on barter and promissory notes for everyday transactions.
Sealing Correspondence and Documents
When colonial merchants and officials sealed documents with wax impressions, they weren’t merely following genteel custom—they created tamper-evident closures that authenticated commercial instruments and protected sensitive correspondence from unauthorized inspection.
These sealed documents formed essential security infrastructure for commercial transactions and governmental communications throughout British America. Wealthy colonists and provincial authorities employed personalized seals bearing unique insignia, ensuring correspondence security against interception by rivals or hostile forces.
The practice became particularly critical during escalating tensions with Britain, when intercepted letters could expose revolutionary activities or commercial arrangements. Unlike paper currency requiring multiple commissioners’ signatures and elaborate border designs, wax seals provided immediate visual evidence of tampering.
Any broken seal revealed unauthorized access, making this authentication method indispensable for treasuries managing colonial funds and merchants conducting sensitive negotiations.
The artillery arsenal of the Revolutionary War comprised three main designs that shaped battlefield tactics across American, French, and British forces: cannons, mortars, and howitzers.
You’ll find that revolutionary artillery featured distinct firing mechanisms—field guns delivered flat trajectories with solid shot and grapeshot, while mortars and howitzers employed higher angles for siege operations.
Continental forces standardized their naval weaponry around mobile pieces:
- 3-pound gallopers and 6-pound field pieces served as primary battlefield artillery
- Effective ranges reached 1,000 yards for cannons and 750 yards for mortars
- Crews achieved four rounds per minute while moving
- French Canon de 8 Gribeauval required thirteen men and four horses
At Yorktown, Washington’s 131 artillery pieces—though numerically inferior—featured superior siege guns and experienced crews like Colonel Lamb’s Artillery, proving decisive.
Philadelphia Privy Pit Excavations
You’ll find that systematic archaeological recovery at Carter’s Alley, conducted before the Museum of the American Revolution construction, employed stratigraphic excavation techniques to document twelve brick-lined privy shafts dating from the early to late eighteenth century.
The excavations reveal distinct artifact concentrations linked to specific trades: Feature 16 at Humphreys’ unlicensed Quaker tavern yielded nearly 375 ceramic vessels alongside animal bones from meals, while wharf workers’ privies contained approximately 1,200 bottles within an eight-foot diameter shaft, evidencing heavy consumption of alcohol, patent medicines, and opium.
These trade-specific assemblages demonstrate how occupational patterns shaped material disposal practices, with button shops discarding seashells, printing establishments depositing 750 pieces of type, and tanning operations leaving specialized implements in surrounding shaft features.
Carter’s Alley Discovery Methods
Prior to constructing Philadelphia’s Museum of the American Revolution in 2017, archaeologists from Commonwealth Heritage Group and JMA conducted extensive excavations at Carter’s Alley, a narrow passageway near 3rd and Chestnut Streets that once provided service access to colonial-era properties.
Their excavation techniques addressed twelve privy pits across twenty-six historic parcels, requiring specialized deep shaft methods. You’ll find water spraying proved essential for breaking up centuries-old excrement layers within brick-lined shafts extending 10-25 feet deep.
The artifact preservation effort yielded remarkable results:
- 82,000 artifacts recovered from sealed privy and well shafts
- 750 pieces of 1760s printer’s typeface documenting colonial communication
- 750 seashell fragments from button manufacturing operations
- Complete tavern assemblages including repaired porcelain punch bowls
These sealed contexts processed into seventy-two archival boxes now preserve unfiltered evidence of pre-Revolutionary Philadelphia life.
Trade-Specific Artifact Concentrations
When archaeologists linked specific privy pits to documented property owners through colonial land records, they revealed distinct concentrations of trade-related artifacts that mapped Philadelphia’s pre-Revolutionary economic landscape.
You’ll find a button maker’s privy filled with seashell fragments from manufacturing processes, while a printer’s pit yielded 750 pieces of discarded type.
Wharves workers disposed of 1,200 bottles containing opium, alcohol, and patent medicines in their designated shaft.
Tanning supplies evidenced leather trade activities, and wig curlers indicated personal service occupations.
These concentrations demonstrate how trade networks connected Philadelphia’s artisans to both local production and international commerce.
The artifacts document economic exchanges spanning from utilitarian manufacturing to specialized crafts, revealing the diverse commercial enterprises that sustained colonial Philadelphia’s marketplace independence.
Pottery and Ceramic Vessels
Among the most abundant artifacts recovered from British colonial sites, pottery and ceramic vessels illuminate the daily rhythms of settler life and the complex networks of trade that sustained emerging communities.
You’ll find evidence of both imported and domestic production, with Jamestown’s four kiln sites and Yorktown’s Rogers Factory yielding over 140,000 fragments.
Colonial pottery production employed diverse ceramic techniques, from redware‘s iron-rich clays to stoneware‘s salt-glazed vitrification.
Major Production Categories:
- Redware – utilitarian vessels using local clay with characteristic red-orange hues
- Stoneware – dense, vitrified pottery with cobalt decorations and maker’s marks
- Delftware – tin-glazed earthenware imported from London suburbs and Bristol
- Creamware – fashionable white clay vessels combining affordability with refinement
These artifacts reveal pottery production that competed directly with British imports throughout North America.
Masonic Symbols and Fraternal Organization Items
The discovery of Masonic artifacts throughout British colonial sites reveals an extensive network of fraternal organization that profoundly shaped early American civic life.
You’ll find these implements—from hoodwink blindfolds to ceremonial jewels—embedded within archaeological contexts dating to the mid-18th century. Fraternal Symbols like the square and compass emerged on chest lids, cornerstone boxes, and initiation aprons, marking spaces where colonial leaders conducted their business.
Benjamin Franklin’s gold-and-ivory trowel and Paul Revere’s silver jewelry exemplify the material culture of Masonic Rituals that bound influential colonists together. These artifacts document how operative masons’ tools transformed into emblems of virtue, with the all-seeing eye and two columns referencing Solomon’s temple.
Operative tools became virtue’s symbols—square, compass, and all-seeing eye binding colonial elites through shared ritualistic meaning.
Such discoveries illuminate the organizational frameworks that enabled revolutionary coordination and civic development across British America.
Military Relics From Key Battles
Battlefield excavations across former British colonial territories yield firearms, artillery fragments, and personal military equipment that document the technological evolution of 18th-century warfare.
You’ll find these artifacts reveal military strategies that shaped colonial conflicts and revolutionary engagements.
- Brown Bess muskets served as standard-issue weapons from 1722-1838, firing three to four shots per minute and appearing at most Revolutionary War battlefields.
- French Twelve-Pouce mortars captured at Fort Ticonderoga enabled Continental forces to implement battlefield innovations at Dorchester Heights, driving British from Boston.
- Pattern 1776 Infantry Rifles represented British adoption of rifled firearms, contrasting smoothbore musket tactics.
- Charleville muskets armed American regiments with French military technology, including 15-inch bayonets responsible for one-third of infantry casualties.
These relics document the convergence of European military technologies in American independence warfare.
Trade Goods Between Native Americans and Europeans
You’ll find that tobacco pipes served dual purposes in colonial trade networks—Europeans imported clay pipes as finished goods while Native Americans crafted their own ceremonial versions from stone and wood, creating distinct archaeological signatures.
The introduction of horses through Spanish and later British channels revolutionized Native trade economies, requiring specialized equipment like bridles, saddles, and iron horseshoes that appear frequently in excavation contexts.
Standardized coinage and brass weights from British merchants established uniform value systems at trading posts, though many transactions continued through beaver pelt equivalencies well into the eighteenth century.
Tobacco Pipes for Europeans
Clay tobacco pipes emerged as one of the most significant trade goods exchanged between Europeans and Native Americans during the colonial period, fundamentally altering indigenous smoking practices that had existed for millennia.
You’ll find that European manufacturers, primarily English and Dutch workshops, dominated production using white kaolin clay. Their tobacco pipe design featured remarkably larger bowls and extended stems compared to traditional Native versions, allowing smoke to cool effectively before inhalation.
Trade pipe materials and construction offered distinct advantages:
- White kaolin clay proved stronger and cheaper than Native-made alternatives
- English pottery guilds produced hundreds of thousands of units packed in barrels for overseas shipment
- Dutch pipes featured rounded “belly” bowls with distinctive makers’ marks
- Fur trade networks distributed these goods throughout indigenous territories from the early 1600s
Horse Equipment and Trade
During the sixteenth century, Spanish conquistadors introduced horses to the Americas as instruments of military dominance, fundamentally reshaping indigenous economies and continental trade networks.
You’ll find archaeological evidence revealing pre-1680 horse equipment usage among Plains peoples—dental damage and skull modifications proving bridle adoption decades before the Pueblo Revolt’s traditional narrative.
Indigenous communities established autonomous horse trade routes extending from New Mexico’s Rio Grande valley through the Rockies to Montana’s Crow territories by the early 1600s.
Chemical signatures in equine remains document consumption of Native-cultivated maize, while healed fractures demonstrate sophisticated veterinary practices.
These networks operated independently of European control, enabling unprecedented mobility and economic expansion.
Coins and Weight Standards
The absence of standardized currency in colonial North America created a complex monetary landscape where Native American wampum, European coins, and commodity-based valuations coexisted as competing exchange systems.
You’ll find this coinage history reveals how settlers navigated economic freedom through improvisation. Spanish dollars dominated as unofficial tender due to reliable silver content, while Portuguese gold coins circulated alongside English half-pence.
The 1792 Coinage Act finally established America’s bimetallic standard, marking significant currency evolution.
Key Exchange Methods:
- White wampum beads valued at six per penny; black at three per penny (1637)
- Spanish pieces of eight cut into “bits” for fractional transactions
- Beaver pelts functioned as money in tax receipts and shop valuations
- Massachusetts authorized silver coinage in May 1652, ending barter dependency
Personal Effects and Household Objects
Within colonial households, everyday objects reflected both the practical necessities of survival and the cultural identity of settlers transplanted from Britain. Your personal belongings included accessories like relief-cast shoe buckles, cufflinks with cornucopia motifs, and brightly colored glass beads that demonstrated social standing.
Domestic tools served essential functions: cast iron cooking pots from England (1600-1650) prepared pottage stew, while bronze mortars and pestles ground medicinal herbs. You’d find hanging fireplace skillets with cranes for direct flame heating, and early three-legged skillets positioned on hearth floors.
Storage solutions included round cellar pits for root vegetables and blown glass bottles (1690-1750) holding spirits. White stoneware tea sets and hand-painted delftware punch bowls graced tables, while pewter chargers by craftsmen like Erasmus Dole adorned cupboards, signifying prosperity and refinement.
Frequently Asked Questions
How Were Colonial Artifacts Typically Preserved Underground for Centuries?
You’ll find colonial artifacts survived through stable soil conditions that created natural barriers against decay. Consistent moisture levels in burial environments prevented oxidation while clay-rich sediments sealed objects from air exposure, maintaining their integrity across centuries.
What Methods Do Archaeologists Use to Date British Colonial Artifacts?
Like archaeologists peeling back layers of history’s forgotten chapters, you’ll employ radiocarbon dating to measure organic materials’ decay and stratigraphic analysis to determine artifacts’ positions within soil layers, establishing precise chronological sequences for British colonial sites.
Why Were Privy Pits Such Rich Sources of Archaeological Finds?
You’ll find privy pit significance lies in their dual-function preservation: anaerobic conditions protected fragile materials while colonial waste analysis reveals decades of accumulated artifacts—pottery, bottles, and trade goods—documenting authentic daily life across multiple generations.
How Do Museums Authenticate the Provenance of Revolutionary War Items?
You’ll discover museums employ exhaustive provenance research and authentication techniques—scrutinizing every conceivable document, from faded receipts to family correspondence—while conducting scientific analyses that’d make forensic investigators envious, ensuring Revolutionary War artifacts aren’t clever fabrications.
What Happens to Artifacts After Excavation and Initial Analysis?
After excavation, you’ll find artifacts undergo post excavation analysis including detailed documentation, stratigraphic correlation, and preliminary dating. Artifact conservation then stabilizes fragile materials before institutional dispersal, where museums catalog, interpret, and display these colonial-era materials for public access.
References
- https://serc.si.edu/woodlawn-exhibit/19-colonial-artifacts-1
- https://www.americanrevolutioninstitute.org/treasures-of-the-american-revolution/revolutionary-war-artifacts/
- https://bcma.bowdoin.edu/antiquity/the-united-states-of-antiquity/1750-1812/
- https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/tens-thousands-artifacts-recovered-colonial-philadelphia-toilets-180959687/
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTXKFglBXV0
- https://www.masshist.org/features/revolutionary-era/artifacts
- https://relicandrarity.com/collections/18th-century-1700-1799-artifacts
- https://www.wiscassetantiquescenter.com/american-revolution/
- https://antiquehardwaresupply.com/blogs/news/american-hardware-in-the-colonial-period
- https://www.houseofantiquehardware.com/timeline-colonial
