Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of treasurebeachesreport.blogspot.com.
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| Appearing in the Vero News (See link below). |
First silver ring certified as coming from a 1715 Fleet wreck.
The find was made in December close to Vero South Beach by Jeff Emlet, as reported in Vero News. Emlet took the ring to be inspected by West Bay Trading Company who certified the ring as being from the 1715 Fleet. The article says it is the first silver ring certified as being from the 1715 Fleet.
Here is the link.
http://veronews.com/2020/02/05/ring-could-be-ancient-artifact-from-sunken-1715-spanish-fleet-experts-say/
As you know, I've posted photos of heavily corroded silver rings found on Treasure Coast beaches in the past. The salvage diver that, as far as I know, has been salvaging treasure on the Treasure Coast longer than any other living soul and who was awarded the Life Time Achievement Award by the Mel Fisher organization, was reported as saying NO silver rings have ever been found on a 1715 Fleet shipwreck site. You can not find a more respected source than that. On multiple occasions I discussed that observation with the fact that terrestrial Spanish-colonial archaeological sites of the same general period have produced silver rings and the number of beach silver ring finds of uncertain date. I would not be shocked if this ring did come from a 1715 Fleet wreck. According to the article, it certainly appears to be the first silver ring documented as coming from a 1715 Fleet wreck.
Congratulations Jeff! Super find!
I will add that it is also not uncommon for early 19th century coins and objects to come from that beach. I've dug those myself and remember years ago showing one heavily corroded silver ring from that area to the archaeologist at the Mel Fisher museum.
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DJ sent me a link to a very interesting thesis: THE DISH RAN AWAY WITH THE SPOON: REVISITING UNPROVENIENCED FOODWAYS ARTIFACTS FROM THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY SPANISH FLEET SHIPWRECKS by Olivia L. Thomas, November, 2017.
As you know, I've posted photos of heavily corroded silver rings found on Treasure Coast beaches in the past. The salvage diver that, as far as I know, has been salvaging treasure on the Treasure Coast longer than any other living soul and who was awarded the Life Time Achievement Award by the Mel Fisher organization, was reported as saying NO silver rings have ever been found on a 1715 Fleet shipwreck site. You can not find a more respected source than that. On multiple occasions I discussed that observation with the fact that terrestrial Spanish-colonial archaeological sites of the same general period have produced silver rings and the number of beach silver ring finds of uncertain date. I would not be shocked if this ring did come from a 1715 Fleet wreck. According to the article, it certainly appears to be the first silver ring documented as coming from a 1715 Fleet wreck.
Congratulations Jeff! Super find!
I will add that it is also not uncommon for early 19th century coins and objects to come from that beach. I've dug those myself and remember years ago showing one heavily corroded silver ring from that area to the archaeologist at the Mel Fisher museum.
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DJ sent me a link to a very interesting thesis: THE DISH RAN AWAY WITH THE SPOON: REVISITING UNPROVENIENCED FOODWAYS ARTIFACTS FROM THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY SPANISH FLEET SHIPWRECKS by Olivia L. Thomas, November, 2017.
The Thomas thesis presents the following table table from Method and Theory in Historical Archaeology, by Stanley South, Academic Press, Inc. New York , 1977.
Notice that kitchen items, for example, were roughly 22 to 35% of the artifacts found at the sampled terrestrial sites, while only 1.4 to 8.4 percent of the artifacts were arms. I think there is a tendency for detectorists to think of certain categories before others that would be just as likely or even more likely. I was talking yesterday about the tendency to think of weapons early and perhaps before other more likely but more mundane categories.
Here is an excerpt from the Thomas thesis referring to an additional study subsequent to the South research.
Russell K. Skowronek’s (1982) Master’s thesis, “Trade Patterns of Eighteenth Century Frontier New Spain: The 1733 Flota and St. Augustine,” applies South’s frontier pattern to ships and shipwrecks by comparing material culture from several ships of the 1733 flota to terrestrial frontier sites. Skowronek utilized similar quantitative analysis in his study based on the pattern and methodology set forth by South (1977:88-100). Skowronek acknowledged the filters and scramblers of the sites including natural elements and the extensive salvaging operations that took place on the shipwrecks of the 1733 flota, both by Spanish shipwreck survivors and modern treasure hunters, and disseminated information by looking at the assemblage of material culture as one whole data set, instead of each ship as an individual set (1982:167-169). He stated that “a simple look at a single site…might give a biased view of the fleet…only by looking at the data as a whole or by reopening excavations on sites with smaller counts of artifacts might these biases be corrected” (Skowronek 1982:168). Skowronek’s (1982:171-172) study ultimately revealed that: …the fit with the Frontier Pattern is somewhat better with matches in all groups but Kitchen and Architecture, the largest percentage groups…the 1733 flota…and the Frontier Pattern is almost perfect…rather than view ships simply as “floating communities” and the all too “stable” implications of such, seagoing vessels should be seen as “floating frontiers.”
His conclusions were based upon the similarities between South’s artifact pattern ranges and the
ranges seen within both the 1733 flota and terrestrial St. Augustine collections, which are shown
below in Table 2.
Once again I got caught trying to stuff the bobcat into a soup can. There is too much here to unravel in one post. I'll try to do that better in the future.
You will notice however that compared to the approximately 1.5 to 8.5 percent of artifacts being in the "arms" category as reported for terrestrial sites sampled in the South study, the Skowronek table shows artifacts from the 1733 flota being higher (nearly 12%). Nonetheless, kitchen artifacts are still much more common than weapons for both the terrestrial and shipwreck sites.
I've discussed in the past several reasons why artifacts salvaged from submerged shipwreck sites might differ from those found on beaches. I won't go over that all again now, but among other things, we have to remember that a lot of things happened on the beaches later, including the contemporary salvage efforts, so items found on neighboring beaches could also come from those later efforts. That is one hypothesis that I've entertained for some of the reported discrepancies.
A good long discussion is warranted here, but I'll have to try to get to it some other time.
Here is the link to the Thomas thesis for additional detail or clarification.
Thanks to DJ for the link.
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Looks like we'll have a bump in the surf around Sunday and Monday.
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| Source: MagicSeaWeed.com |
Here are yesterday's Turtle Trail and Seagrape photos. Thanks to DJ.
Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net
