Size and shape analysis of gunflints from the British shipwreck Deltebre I (1813), Catalonia, Spain: a geometric morphometric comparison of unused and used artefacts

JUDITH CHARLIN; GUSTAU VIVAR LOMBARTE; NICOLAS CIARLO; JUDITH CHARLIN; SILVANA BUSCAGLIA; GUSTAU VIVAR LOMBARTE; NICOLAS CIARLO; SILVANA BUSCAGLIA; JIMENA ALBERTI; RUT GELI MAURI; JIMENA ALBERTI; RUT GELI MAURI

Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences.

Springer-Verlag

Año: 2019 p. 6569 - 6582

1866-9557

Gunflints represent a worldwide feature of lithic technology in modern times. This type of artefact was used to ignite the powder of firearms through a flintlock mechanism from the middle-seventeenth to the early-twentieth century in different contexts around the world. Taking what is a novel and exploratory approach in historical archaeology, this paper offers a quantitative analysis of a random sample of 200 unused gunflints recovered from the British shipwreck Deltebre I. This cargo ship belonged to an allied convoy that unsuccessfully tried to liberate Tarragona city from the Napoleonic forces, and sunk in the Ebro river delta, Catalonia, Spain, in 1813. The results from size and shape characterisation of the unused gunflints using geometric morphometric methods are presented. In order to assess morphometric variation between used and unused artefacts, this sample was compared with published images of 22 used British gunflints from different archaeological contexts. Finally, the usefulness of applied methodology to quantitatively characterise the design and morphometric variations of this kind of artefacts is highlighted.