I can barrel-ly contain myself: identifying types of wooden casks within the Emanuel Point II artifact assemblage
John Robert III Elmore
University of West Florida,
Master of Arts (MA), University of West Florida
2021
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Abstract
Wooden casks served as essential tools for economic development for thousands of years by storing and transporting various commodities. Though they no longer play as significant of a role for commerce in the modern era, their utility is still remembered because of their long-lasting reign of use. Historians and archaeologists alike study both casks as well as the individuals who make them (coopers) to further understand the significance each held as contributors toward economic growth. Archaeologists have recovered numerous types of wooden casks from across the globe, with each discovery shedding light on the cultural significance held by different cask types during different eras. Though archaeologists have yet to recover a fully intact cask from any of the archaeological sites affiliated with the Tristan de Luna expedition of 1559, one of the site's artifact assemblages (the Emanuel Point II's (EPII)) contains a collection of objects identified as wooden cask components. An analysis of these components contributes toward the identification of cask types within the EPII artifact assemblage, thereby shedding light on the types of casks utilized by 16th-century Spanish colonists.