A Tale of Personal Discovery: A Comparative Analysis of the Emanuel Point, Padre Island, and Santa Clara Shipwrecks (1554-1564)

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Plus Ultra: An examination of current research in Spanish Colonial/Iberian Underwater and Terrestrial Archaeology in the Western Hemisphere." , at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

Over the last thirty years, there has been much done to study the archaeological and nautical history of sixteenth-century shipwrecks in Pensacola Bay. However, this study will focus not on ship construction in the sixteenth-century, but instead on what personal possessions the crew and passengers on the ships of the Tristán de Luna y Arellano expedition of 1559 brought with them. Surviving artifacts from the expedition will help in developing a comprehensive study of material culture on sixteenth-century seafaring vessels. This analysis will aid in not only a cross-comparison between all three Emanuel Point shipwrecks, but the contemporaneous Padre Island (1554) and Santa Clara (1564) wrecks as well. In the end, conclusions gathered through this study will contribute to a comprehensive understanding of the personal possessions of an average seaman and his identity among his fellow crew members aboard the sixteenth-century Emanuel Point ships.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for Historical Archaeology 2020   •
• Plus Ultra: An examination of current research in Spanish Colonial/Iberian Underwater and Terrestrial Archaeology in the Western Hemisphere.

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Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 642