Drake or Cermeño: The Riddle Of A 16th Century Pig At Pt. Reyes National Seashore.

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Life and Death in the San Francisco Bay: Multi-Disciplinary Approaches to Historic Lifeways", at the 2024 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

The search for the precise landing spot of Sir Francis Drake on the western coast of North America has lasted centuries. The discovery of sixteen-century Ming Dynasty porcelain and other European artifacts located at Point Reyes National Seashore has long been at the center of the “Drakes Bay” controversy. The debate revolves around whether these materials are the result of Drake’s careening of the Golden Hind in 1579 or the 1595 wreck of a Manilla galleon captained by Sebastian Rodriquez Cermeño. This paper presents new archaeometric data derived from unique faunal remains from CA-MRN-308, a site located at Pt. Reyes. AMS radiocarbon dating, stable isotopic and mtdna analysis of 16th century pig remains suggests it was likely of Asian/Philippine origin, and thus, more likely arrived with Cermeño, than with Drake. The data also provide significant new evidence pointing to the early introgression of the European and Asian swine.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for Historical Archaeology 2024   •
• Life and Death in the San Francisco Bay: Multi-Disciplinary Approaches to Historic Lifeways

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Nicole Haddow