Using “ proxy seat ” made of pig parts , a team of Canadian archaeologistsrecently determinedthat the earliest known archaeological evidence of injuries due to duck shot pass during a battle in the War of 1812 .
After studying corpse unearthed during dig of theBattle of Stoney Creek , which took place on June 6 , 1813 near the back talk of the Niagara River in what is now Hamilton , Ontario , the team — conduct by Laura Lockau at nearby McMaster University — recreated the articulatio coxae wounding of three soldiers kill in the battle between British and American soldiery . As noted in their finding , published in this calendar month ’s way out of theJournal of Archaeological Science : theme , the research worker corrupt pig shoulders from a local sad sack and layered them with halfway loin pork barrel chops and belly pork to imitate a human hip . The pig part were covered with a modern stuff alike to British military uniform worn at the fourth dimension and fired upon from a space of nearly 30 feet with a modern reproduction of a smoothbore firelock musket , the Springfield 1795 pattern .69 . The gun was load with two types of ammo : “ buck and ball " ( a musket testicle along with three buckshot pellets ) and buckshot .
X - ray of the " proxy buttocks " germinate with buckshot matched the hip injury from the soldier killed at Stoney Creek in 1813 . “ This is the first sentence of which we are aware that haggard wound attributable to buckshot ammo have been identified in archaeological material , ” Lockau and her colleagues write .
Kristina Killgrove , a bioarchaeologist and contributor tomental_floss , explain inForbeswhy archaeologic evidence of bird shot wound had n’t been bring out prior to the War of 1812 :
One matter the researcher were unable to check definitively is which side the buckshot - offend soldiers fought on . While only the American army write out duck shot during the war , the closemouthed propinquity of the soldiers and the fact that the battle was struggle at night advise that friendly fire was “ likely , ” they say .
[ h / tForbes ]
