TIL the weird clay pipe piece I found in my mom's garden in Ohio is probably a 1800s drainage tile, not a 'mystery artifact'

David Palmer · 2026-10-11T20:00:03.956655+00:00

I was helping my mom dig up her garden beds in Dayton last Saturday when my shovel hit something hard about a foot down. I pulled out this curved piece of reddish clay pipe, about 8 inches long, and got way too excited thinking it was some kind of old relic. Posted a photo to a local history group and a guy who does farm site surveys said it's almost certainly a piece of drain tile from when that land was farmed back in the late 1800s. Kind of a letdown, but also cool that my mom's suburb was all cornfields not that long ago. Anyone else find stuff in their yard and spend a week convincing themselves it's ancient?

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TIL the weird clay pipe piece I found in my mom's garden in Ohio is probably a 1800s drainage tile, not a 'mystery artifact' | Archaeology Discoveries - SMM Buzz