Iron Nail?

Sorry, it is a bronze age site near where I found this. Is it bronze age or is it modern?

Could be an old hand forged rivet

agreed. my first thought too. but the rust thing....?

"Why is the head so thick but not very wide?" It's as wide as it needs to be. Making flat heads with sharp undercuts would weaken the fastener and be much more time consuming.

I'm just applying common engineering sense here, and have no educational background in archeology, nor history, nor metallurgy, nor............ well you get the picture. It's a wild Arse guess.

The older nails that I have seen have square heads, like the hand wrought nails shown here. Your nail head looks very round and regular as well as thick... I suspect it is machine made and modern.

Perhaps, a rustic hinge pin.

You said it had no rust, but it looks like it does. It could be a bronze nail. Try cleaning it with copper cleaner and see if it shines up. If it is iron, a magnet will pick it up. A head of that shape suggests it is a finish nail. If you expected anyone here to be a bronze age expert, you may be disappointed.

It's a bronze age golf tee!

make that mini-golf.

This to me looks like a nail in the making, the smithy hadn't got around to "upsetting" the head yet & therefore is incomplete, the other thing is it could be a horse shoe nail which again hasn't been completed where the head is ok but the shaft has not been forged out to a point. When I was an apprentice I was taught to shoe horses but was fired when one fell out the vice!

lol!

but all the shoing nails I remember were square... made from a rod, and squared up and cut by the blacksmith.

WoW! Fantastic answer jhh!

Since it was Scotland, I was leaning toward the Bronze Age Golf Tee

Thanks for the answer. I'd go with what you said. I found it on a dirt track so it was probably cleaned up by the grit and dust.

We live on a castle estate. The castle itself was built in the 14th century and workers houses have been built at various periods since then but there is also a bronze age site here hence my interest in what period it comes from. It is quite possible 1850-1930 is correct.

Thanks

Do you have a local museum you could ask?

Is it attracted to a magnet?

the square head would indicate that it's a screw rather than a nail. your location would indicate that you found it on the coast. i'ld guess it's from a ship. ship builders always used corrostion resistent metals. it may even be from a viking vessel. analyis it.