🔎 UNIDENTIFIED Small Tool ?

[Dismal Swampy]

Found this up on the ridge fairly deep
Definitely handmade just can figure out what it was used for.
The "handle" is wood and it's about 4.5" in length

 

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[ticndig]

looks like a cut nail in a piece of wood to me.

 

[villagenut]

Ticndig is correct, I have found similar examples at old structure sites where boards have rotted away, but leaving behind a small remnant of wood where a nail had been left in place. I had theorized that the iron in the nail somehow preserved the small amount of wood that was left in contact with the nail. Here are a few examples I have to show.....

 

[Dismal Swampy]

Appreciate the help and ideas on identifying.
I was thinking when I dug it up it may have been a old handmade gimlet or awl with point broken off . It was pretty deep and no crusty rusting like I have found on most nails dug from the ground

 

[Dismal Swampy]

Appreciate the help and ideas on identifying.
I was thinking when I dug it up it may have been a old handmade gimlet or awl with point broken off . It was pretty deep and no crusty rusting like I have found on most nails dug from the ground

I forgot to mention it was dug around a known union encampment. That's why I was thinking tool perhaps. I couldn't find evidence of any structure or fences up there

 

[ticndig]

union camps of Va were full of structures , many were dug in winter camps. the iron of the nail and a lack of oxygen in your soil has kept the microbes from eating all of the wood. I've found civil war buttons with thread still attached to the shank because the metal of the button poisoned the area around the thread preventing decay. this is a replica of a dug in hut at a Stafford Va Museum.