Investigating the Oxbows and Testing Metal Detector Efficiency

Figure 6. Metal detector team at work on the northern most oxbow in tall grass.
located include 3 cut nails, a tinned beer can, a fragment of clear glass associated with a wire
nail, 2 wire nails, 2 nuts for bolts, an unidentified piece of strap iron, an unidentified iron
collapsible frame, a 3-tine fork with wooden handle, a 10 gauge shotshell base headstamped
UMC/New Club, a 10 gauge shotshell base headstamped WRA, a .45-70-caliber cartridge
headstamped WRA, an unidentified cast iron fragment, unidentified electrical splicing device, a
tin can, and a copper harness rivet. The finds ranged in depth from surface to 25cm with most
being found around 3-5cm below surface.
The cut nails probably date after 1880 and the wire nail was not commonly in production until
after 1890. The 3-tined fork is similar in style to ones found in late nineteenth century mail order
catalogs. The shotshells and .45-70 cartridge were manufactured after 1929 and before 1978 as
noted earlier. The material found in the grassy area appears to be a light scatter of late
nineteenth and early twentieth century trash. The area may have once functioned as a disposal or
discard area for the War Department administrators and later the National Park Service.
The dense vegetation precluded all but the most random metal detector sweeps as the team could
not swing the detectors nor reach the ground surface with the coils in most areas. The random
detector sweeps of the heavily vegetated areas produced no metal targets with the VLF or PI
machines.
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