Gunflints in colonial archaeological sites at Patagonia (República Argentina): an approach to their origins and use

BUSCAGLIA, S.; ÁLVAREZ. M.; ALBERTI, J.

Barcelona

Simposio; X International Symposium Knappable Materials. On the Rocks; 2015

Facultat de Geografía e Història, Universitat de Barcelona

The aim of this paper is to present the results of analysis of 5 gunflintsfrom two colonial archaeological sites located in Patagonia (Argentina Republic).In Argentinathere is a long record of importation of these artifacts between the sixteenthand nineteenth centuries. However, analysis of flints in our country has ashort history and still there is not a specialized field among the lithicartifacts study field. Thus, this work constitutes a new contribution to thestudy of this technology and to the developments on this topic in other partsof the world.              In the first place wepresent the state of detailed analysis of gunflints in Argentina; then, we discussed their presence inarchaeological sites in Patagonia. We brieflypresent general information regarding the production, supply and use in thecolonial context of South America, and finally we focus on the sample ofartifacts recovered in two colonial sites of the eighteenth century inPatagonia: The New Colony and Fort of Floridablanca (St. Julian, Santa Cruz province)San José fort (Valdés peninsula, Chubut province) (Figure 1). Both settlements werecreated as part of a plan of the Spanish Crown to colonize the PatagonianAtlantic coast, where officials, soldiers, peasants, prisoners, among others,were participants and who related with indigenous people in different ways.Up to this moment, it is not only the unique sample from Spanishcolonial archaeological sites located in one of the southernmost reaches of theSpanish Empire, the eastern Patagonia, but also one of the earliest specimensfrom this area. The questions that guided the analysis of these artifactsrelated primarily to determine its origin, its functionality and use, as wellas the possibility of recycling and reclamation after their disposal. In orderto answer these questions we perform a comprehensive analysis of existingrecords to date on this technology, we did a techno-morphological and a rawmaterial analysis of the gunflints, and a use-wear analysis using a metallographicmicroscope. By these means we expect to establish the possible origin and useof these flints.