CONICET | Buscador de Institutos y Recursos Humanos

On November 26, 1874, near to "Estancia La Verde" (currently 25 de Mayo, Buenos Aires province, Argentina Republic) took place a battle between loyal government forces, leaded by Lieutenant Colonel Inocencio Arias, and the revolutionary forces, under General Bartolomé Mitre command. This event lasted at least three hours, and resulted in great casualties, sealing the fate of the revolutionary movement. From the technological and historical point of view this is one of the first events in which breech block rifles were massively used in this country. Archeological works performed in the site have permitted recover a variety of metallic artifacts and fragments related to this war event. By means of microstructural studies information about warfare technology of that time, its actual use, as well as the way that the environment has affected these remains were obtained The majority of the artefacts consists in lead bullets and brass cartridges primarily identified as belonging to Remington and Martin-Henry rifles. This work aims to analyze the chemical composition, sizes, shape and microstructure of lead projectiles, in order to put light on the technological aspects such us mechanical properties and alloy quality and other ones relates to the battle development. The basic analytical techniques applied were: optical microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, energy dispersive X ray spectrometry and neutron activation analysis.