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Each object has a lifespan in which it is made, transported, marketed, used, and discarded. Although the manufacturing date range for artifacts may be known, we should not equate the manufacturing range for an object type with the use range for a particular object. Studies from several locations indicate ceramic artifacts have lifespans of as much as 15 years and more in a household before being discarded. Ceramics can be poor sources for dating sites if used without considering the cultural contexts in which they are used, yet ceramics are the artifact class used most often in dating sites.

The commonly cited sources used by archaeologists for dating nails have been rendered outdated by later research. Machine cut and headed nails date from 1815 onwards, while wire nails date from 1819 onward. Historical archaeologists need to avoid the simplistic use of invention dates and patent dates and focus instead on the mass-production dates. There can be a significant amount of time between an invention and its first production, and even greater time until production figures are significantly high enough to affect the archaeological record. Usually wire nails are ascribed an 1850s beginning date, but that date is both too early and too late. While some wire nails were produced in 1819, no significant quantities were produced in the United States until the mid-1880s. Thus, we need to extend the manufacturing date back some 30 years with the caveat that the effective manufacturing date range begins in the 1880s. By examining production figures for wire nails, a model is generated for dating sites built of machine cut nails. This model is then examined using data from dozens of sites in the USA and Canada. Just as important, the model provides clues to recycling activity and access to different manufacturing sources.

Recent excavations in St. Augustine, Florida, have yielded new data with respect to Spanish majolica. A number of 18th century majolica types occur much later in St. Augustine than in other parts of Florida. Previous studies of majolica (Goggin 1968) do not include data from domestic sites in St. Augustine. Careful stratigraphic control indicates that Goggin’s majolica dates are skewed approximately 20-25 years earlier than the majolica recovered from St. Augustine (Bonath 1975; Deagan 1974). New dates of manufacture have been assigned to several types on the basis of sherds recovered from closed proveniences of First Spanish Period (1565-1763) context at the Geronimo de Hita site in St. Augustine. The presence of plain creamware was used (Deagan 1975a) to determine a terminus post quern of 1755 for the First Spanish Period proveniences. Certain types of majolica within these proveniences were found consistently in association with mid-18th century British wares that would provide termini post quem in the date range of 1740-1745 for those majolica types. These stratigraphic dates have been further verified through the application of documentary information, South’s (1972, 1974) mean ceramic date formula and Binford’s (1962) mean pipestem dating formula. Each of these supplementary dating methods has been applied to five north Florida Spanish-Colonial sites in an effort to support the new majolica dates by testing South’s majolica model with the mean ceramic date formula.