By Douglas Scott

During the September 2004 archeological road survey at Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument we recovered artifacts at 320 find spot locations. One had 18 fired 45-55 carbine cases at that location.

We found metal arrow points (both near markers), a couple of trouser buttons (not far from markers), a group of boot nails and a piece of boot leather, a screw to a Colt revolver backstrap, and the usual assortment of cartridge cases and bullets.

At the Indian position on Greasy Grass Ridge, we found more .44 Henrys', several 50-70 cartridge cases, several Spencer cases, and one type we had not seen before - a .44 bottleneck Sharps case.

The important thing about the recovery was simply we found artifactual material in the same areas we found them in previous years, and we did not find anything or at least very little where we found little or nothing in the earlier work. I believe this is important because the intensive metal detecting for the road project covered as close to 100% of the area (60 feet either side of the road) as we could possibly get. Since no new concentrations were found this means our original sampling scheme was valid
and accurate.

I will keep you informed as we move into the analytical phase - especially if we find any new firearms types or other details.

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