Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of treasurebeachesreport.blogspot.com.
A couple of days ago I mentioned an Archaeology of Colonial Pensacola book that gave a lot of details on the number and type of a large number of excavated colonial archaeological sites. That type of information can be very helpful.
In another recent post I mentioned how the first thing you are likely to see at many old sites is glass and ceramics will be among the most common artifacts, which will typically be more visible than coins or other similar metal objects.
Below is one example of the useful graphs that you will find in the book I am talking about.
As you can see from the chart, glass and ceramics made up over 75 percent of the total number of artifacts found on the archaeological sites included in the study, which, by the way, also included a few wrecks.
Here is some of what the book says about metal materials.
Here is another graph from the same book showing the types of glassware found at the colonial Pensacola sites.
The most common type of glass was from bottles. That is no big surprise. Then beads, and then drinking glasses.
You might say that is no big surprise. How is it so useful.
When you investigate a site, you'll see certain types of things. A relative disproportion of one type of artifact or another can tell you something about the site.
For example, treasure ships, such as those found along the Treasure Coast, present a much greater number of coins than you would find at other types of sites. That is an obvious example but a good one that shows how knowing the typical distribution of different types of materials and artifacts can help you draw conclusions about your site.
If you find a site where glass is littering the ground, you instantly know that other types of materials should be there too.
If you know what might be expected at a site and aren't finding it, there could be a few different reasons. One example, would be possible deterioration over time or in a marine environment the sifting and sorting action of wave energy. But if you know there should be something there that you aren't finding, you might consider why and if those things still might be there, how you can find them.
The materials and types of artifacts at a site can be diagnostic. To get to more detailed information you'll have to look into the book. There is a lot more useful information there than I can get into in a blog format.
Here is the link to the book again.
https://www.amazon.com/Archaeology-Colonial-Pensacola-Florida-Natural/dp/0813016614
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Forget the New Year’s Eve fireworks, NASA has announced that a comet currently zooming through the inner Solar System will be so bright over the next week that we should be able to see it in the night sky with binoculars.,,
Here is the link for the rest of that story.
http://blog.spiritdaily.com/news-links/comet
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Not much to look forward to for the next couple of weeks. The surf isn't supposed to be much higher than two feet. A few days ago they predicted some higher surf. As I said at the time, those kinds of predictions don't often turn out to be right.
Happy New Year,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net
