Kettle Lugs and Tinkling Cones

On the 11th of July, I had an encounter with an artifact humbly named kettle lug. We were on our third day of the field school, but had yet to even visit the site. Previous heavy rains sprung from Hurricane Beryl had raised the level of the St. Joseph River to the point where the excavation area of Fort St. Joseph was completely underwater. Using the dewatering system normally responsible for keeping the ground dry enough to excavate was out of the question; until the water returned to its usual course, our pumps would simply be moving the river itself. Like the river, the planned field school curriculum had been rearranged, allowing time to go on two museum trips in three days. In archaeology, there is never a shortage of artifacts to catalog, so our schedule was saved by early lab sessions where we learned to clean and sort finds from previous years' flotation samples. 

Most of the class was occupied with gently scrubbing bone fragments with toothbrushes, but Naomi and I were tasked with carefully scraping away at a mysterious metal object caked in rock-hard dirt and corrosion. Alternating between a dental pick and a dry toothbrush, one of us would lightly remove debris until our hands started to cramp, and then the other would step in. Given the size of the object, there was speculation that it could be part of a flintlock firing mechanism. As a military and trade outpost, Fort St. Joseph would have had an abundance of firearms on its grounds, and in fact, a cache of gun parts had already been found at the site, indicating repair and maintenance activity (Hartley and Nassaney, pp. 90-91.). As we etched further into the object, a sturdy hooked structure became evident, and we hypothesized that it could be the hammer of a damaged and bent cock, the part of the firing mechanism that holds the flint (hence the saying ‘to go off half-cocked’). Erika inspected our progress and suggested that it was a kettle lug. 

(I had no idea what a kettle lug was.)

Copper and brass kettles were part of the trade in manufactured goods that changed the travel and habitation patterns of Native Americans in the region around Fort St. Joseph (Hoock, Hoock, and Nassaney, pp. 178-179.). The word “kettle” today evokes an image of a sturdy, enclosed vessel with a spout used for boiling water for tea, but the kettles of the fort’s time were lighter, smaller, open containers. The “lug” was a shaped piece of metal riveted to the rim of the kettle to provide a reinforced point to attach the kettle’s handle. The thick, hooked part we had observed was probably what remained of one of those rivets, lodged in the remains of the metal plate that made up the rest of the lug.

One of the major ideas emphasized at the field school is that European material culture did not simply replace existing technology wholesale, and neither did it supplant it piecemeal, but it was proactively used and adapted in new ways its original creators in France never envisioned (Nassaney, p. 11.). The use of scrap metal as projectile points and hide scrapers might have been predicted, but people in and around the Fort also transformed items into new kinds of artifacts such as the tinkling cone (Giordano and Nassaney, p. 137.).

(I had no idea what a tinkling cone was.)

Tinkling cones are beads made of metal, cut to a desired size, and then rolled into a conical form. Worn on clothing, shoes, and tools, these items of personal adornment were a visible and audible element of personal identity for Native Americans and Europeans who adopted local dress. And now they have come to be a distinctive type of artifact found at Fort St. Joseph. The kettle lug we patiently picked at until our hands ached may have even been attached to a kettle that was repurposed in this way to form a tinkling cone, from a utilitarian object to an item of personal adornment. It is interesting to see the connections that can be drawn when examining artifacts of the past.

-Luke

References:

Giordano, Brock A. and Nassaney, Michael S. "Crafting Culture at Fort St. Joseph: An Analysis of Tinkling Cone Production." Fort St. Joseph Revealed: The Historical Archaeology of a Fur Trading Post, edited by Michael S. Nassaney, University Press of Florida, 2019, pp. 134-152.

Hartley, Erika K. and Nassaney, Michael S. "Architectural Remains at Fort St. Joseph." Fort St. Joseph Revealed: The Historical Archaeology of a Fur Trading Post, edited by Michael S. Nassaney, University Press of Florida, 2019, pp. 79-100.

Hoock, Mark, Hoock, Allison M., and Nassaney, Michael S. "The Changing Cultural Landscape of the Lower St. Joseph River Valley." Fort St. Joseph Revealed: The Historical Archaeology of a Fur Trading Post, edited by Michael S. Nassaney, University Press of Florida, 2019, pp. 173-192.

Nassaney, Michael S. "Revealing the History and Archaeology of Fort St. Joseph." Fort St. Joseph Revealed: The Historical Archaeology of a Fur Trading Post, edited by Michael S. Nassaney, University Press of Florida, 2019, pp. 1-14.