400-year-old pistol found on site of first American colonists

[Buttercup McToots]

http://news.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=1089102006&format=print

400-year-old pistol found on site of first American colonists

exerpt:

RICHARD LUSCOMBE
ARCHAEOLOGISTS have uncovered a rare but perfectly preserved early 17th-century Scottish pistol at the historic former British colony known as the birthplace of the United States, making the firearm one of the oldest artefacts of European origin ever discovered in North America.

The weapon probably belonged to one of the first settlers to arrive at Jamestown, Virginia, in 1607, and was recovered from a well at the site with several other "hugely significant" artefacts.

"It was like Christmas in July," said Bly Straube, the curator of the Jamestown Rediscovery museum where the snaphaunce pistol, probably made by a manufacturer in the Scottish Lowlands more than 400 years ago, was being cleaned up in a chemical-free water bath yesterday.

"The lock is encrusted but it has a brass barrel common on a lot of Scottish-made pistols. It's very distinctive and in very good condition."

The pistol, leather shoes, a ceremonial axe known as a halberd and a small lead tag engraved with the archaic spelling "Yames Towne" are some of the earliest European artefacts to be discovered in the United States, according to William Kelso, the site's director of archaeology.

His team has spent 12 years excavating areas of the 22.5-acre Jamestown site, where three boats carrying 107 colonists, under the command of Captain John Smith, landed on 14 May, 1607, and began construction of what would become Britain's first permanent settlement in the New World.

[jobycom]

1. So a gun is one of the oldest European artifacts in North America

Why am I not surprised?

[unda cova brutha]

2. the gun culture in amerika has deep roots

[senseandsensibility]

3. Is there a photo of the gun anywhere?

Thanks.

[Bonobo]

4. Maybe something like this? (photo)

or this

http://www.glasgowmuseums.com/showExhibition.cfm?venueid=0&itemid=74&Showid=52&slideid=37

[senseandsensibility]

8. Now that's a gorgeous piece of pistolry

And this is coming from a gun hating liberal.:)

[unda cova brutha]

10. nothing gorgous about a gun.

[Xithras]

16. I take it that you have never seen a finely built weapon.

A gun is simply a machine, and like any machine they can be built with a quality and workmanship that gives them a unique beauty, or they can be mass produced tools that are about as beautiful as a toaster.

My dad owns a handbuilt 18th century flintlock that must have taken the original craftsman hundreds of hours to create. The intricate carvings in the wood, the detailed scenes etched into the barrel, it's built like a piece of fine furniture and was intended to be not only a useful piece of equipment, but a beautiful thing to look at. Nobody would even suggest firing it today, but even people who generally despise guns marvel at it when he or I pull it out.

[seriousstan]

17. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, I happen to think this is gorgous

Especially the 9mm pistol

[Deep13]

21. You're on your own there.

Real carbines have wooden stocks.:evilgrin:

[BrotherBuzz]

29. And lever action

The latent cowboy in me is channeling. ;)

[anarch]

27. these sort of remind me of this:

In context:

[seriousstan]

31. Spaceballs soldiers used the rifle I pictured unaltered with scope.

[Deep13]

32. Looks like a WWII Sten submachine gun with a backwards scope.

It even has the side-mounted magazine and the ventilation holes.

[anarch]

35. yeah, they pretty much based it on that I think

Even more obvious:


Han Solo's blaster



and its inspiration, the Mauser 9mm

[Hand]

47. Close...

It's actually a Sterling-Patchett SMG, the post-war replacement for the Sten. Similar design, but much better workmanship--the Sten was a notoriously cheap weapon that had a bad habit of either refusing to fire at all or refusing to stop!

[Deep13]

19. Beg to differ.

Well made firearms are attractive for the same reason that a well made car is. (Guess which one is more dangerous.) I've got this 0.22 target grade rifle with a walnut stock with double cut checkering and a clear finish and a medium heavy tapered barrel. It it pretty impressive.

If you think my comments are limited to target or varmit dedicated rifles, I also have a number of handguns, all high end consumer grade models. Two of them would have been illegal under the AWB because of their magazines.

[senseandsensibility]

40. I'm only speaking of the workmanship

It is beautiful, but I do wish it had another purpose. And it was kind of a weak joke, since I don't think "pistolry" is a word.

[Buttercup McToots]

9. How Kool

It was prolly on of the Scots that got thrown out of Scotland during the clearances.
Came to America to start a new life...:-)

[Virginia Dare]

12. Or a mercenary...

there were lots of those too. I recently toured one of the first English settlements in Virginia, and from what a gather, these "settlements" were actually more like military outposts. Martial law was strictly enforced.

[tjwmason]

14. Not the clearances.

They were far too late for an early 17th century artifact.

It is actually interesting given that the Union of the Crowns only took place in 1603, before which there was still considerable hostility between England and Scotland. Virginia being an English colony, not a British one.

[jobycom]

5. When they say North America, do they mean North America?

It seems to me that the Spanish would have left some artefacts somewhere along the way before 1607. Sante Fe was established in 1607, and the region around it had been European-populated for years before that. Are there no artifacts, does Spain not get counted as part of Europe, or is this just east coast bias?

They could just as easily teach the history of the American conquest from west to east, and get an earlier start on European settlements in NA.

[Spider Jerusalem]

18. They probably mean British North America.

The article IS from a British newspaper, after all. So there's likely to be a certain amount of Anglo-Saxon bias involved.

And the European conquest of the American continent didn't go from west to east; the Spanish had a few military outposts, churches, and missions, but their main interest was in silver mining, not in colonisation. It was the establishment of several mostly British colonies on the east coast in the 17th century that led to the real influx of Europeans to the continent.

[Bridget Burke]

33. The Spanish began to colonise the future USA in 1598

When Juan Onate headed north of the Rio Grande. The Spanish were kicked out in the Pueblo Revolt in 1680, but eventually re-conquered the area. Spanish didn't seriously try to colonize Texas until the 18th century--but settlers were thin on the ground & eventually outnumbered by the ILLEGALS moving in from the USA. (Spain & France started fighting over Florida even earlier, but were forced out by English colonists from the North.)

In short, I agree that the British colonists made the largest impact on the future USA--& left more artifacts. But the other Europeans who also left a mark tend to be ignored.

For example, I learned in school that Jane Long was "The Mother of Texas." She bore a child in 1821 on the Bolivar Peninsula. This ignores the Spanish/Mexican ladies who'd given birth in earlier years--& the indigenous ladies who predated all of them. Jane Long, in fact, was not even the first Anglo to give birth in Texas.

www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/LL/flo11.html

(Two crates of flintlock rifles were recently discovered in the wreckage of the Belle--the ship used by René Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle in his abortive attempt to place a French colony in Texas. Actually, he planned to settle at the mouth of the Mississippi--but missed it & stopped at Matagorda Bay. This was about 1684.)

Sorry--I tend to run on...

[XemaSab]

45. I've lived in California my whole life

and it's only in the last couple years that I have realized that the Southwest and California have some of the oldest European artifacts around. :hi:

[LiberalEsto]

6. NRA members must be wetting themselves

in howling glee.

Guns are for barbarians.

[Deep13]

22. Nope, still dry.

Just because I have to be a member to use the local rifle range does not mean I agree with either their paranoid politics or their view of the Constitution.

We are barbarians. Pretending otherwise will not change that.

[Robb]

23. No, you're thinking of horned hats

[Taverner]

28. Barbarian here then

Although I do not own a gun anymore (As a responsible gun owner, I felt it was imperative to sell the gun as once I had small children in the house)

[Viva_La_Revolution]

7. My Grandpa would have loved this

He had some great early guns, replicas for the most part that he built from kits. I loved watching him pour bullets.

He never would let me shoot the flintlock though. :(

[Dyedinthewoolliberal]

11. A gun.........

well, why not? It certainly wouldn't have been a copy of "How to win friends and influence people".
But a guy can wish can't he?

[Bubba Zanetti]

13. Why throw a gun down a well?

Guns were (and still are) expensive and valuable items. Why did someone drop it down a well? If it was an accident, why not retrieve it?

Was the gun stolen and hid in the well? Was it a murder weapon and was dumped? Was it dumped there at a later date when a gov or other authority outlaw firearms and it was dropped in the well in an attempt to quickly hide the gun?

[Xithras]

20. Depends.

In the old days, wells were generally dug in the late fall when the water table was at its lowest. This allowed the diggers to ensure that the water table wouldn't drop below the well bottom as the seasons changed. Once the water table was hit, they'd typically dig the hole as deep into it as possible (generally 4-6 feet below the water line).

If the gun fell in during the spring, the water in the well could have been a dozen or more feet deep. It may not have been possible to retrieve it. A heavy metal gun, like this, would also have sunken deeply into the silty muck at the bottom and wouldn't have been visible.

[Deep13]

24. Hmmm. Good question.

Hiding a murder weapon seems plausible. Still, the bullet would not have been traceable (smoothbore, no forensic science) and a shot in a town like that would have been pretty conspicuous. Maybe it was ditched when it became obsolete. (Old wells were used as trash dumps.) Still, hard to imagine that they did not recover the metal.

[lildreamer316]

15. I LOVE your name!!

Off-topic; but that is the coolest ever!!

[Buttercup McToots]

36. Pshaw...

Why Thank you...
I've had it forever...

[jedicord]

25. They finally found the WMD! n/t

[1monster]

26. This article is wrong. The first American colonists hit Florida in

the mid fifteen hundreds. The first permanent settlement was in (and still is) St.Augustine, Florida which was founded by Pedro Menendez de Aviles in 1565. That was forty-two years BEFORE Jamestown.

[Bridget Burke]

34. But they spoke Spanish--so they weren't REAL Americans!

(Yes, this is a joke.)

[Xipe Totec]

42. By the by, do you know where the red X in the FL flag

comes from?

:think:

[Bridget Burke]

43. Well, I tried to look it up...

Burgundian (Spanish), Irish, Confederate?

Please, I'd love to know the real story.

[Xipe Totec]

46. Spanish Cross of Burgundy

The Cross of Burgundy and variants was probably the most common banner displayed on land and sea in New Spain, particularly by the Spanish military.



After Castile and Aragon were united to form Spain in 1516, Charles I's royal banner was the country's only flag. By 1520, Spain had adopted a new national flag, as shown above. The saltire design, known as the Cross of Burgundy, was a symbol of Philip I, Duke of Burgundy and father of Charles I, who became Spain's king in 1516.

There were many versions of this flag, but in its most simple form consisted of a red saltire (diagonal cross) on a field of white. Actually, the design was supposed to represent two crossed branches, the extension on either side representing bases of limbs which have been cut off, and a few Cross of Burgundy flags actually do show limbs. Variants of the Burgundy cross flag--principally versions with smooth-edged saltires--became widely used by the Spanish military on both land and sea

http://www.cviog.uga.edu/Projects/gainfo/spflag.htm

This was the flag of Hernan Cortes, Francisco Pizarro, Juan Ponce de Leon, and other Spanish conquerors. Hence, this is the flag under which Ponce de Leon claimed Florida for the King of Spain.



I thought you would enjoy this little bit of Hispanic history

:hi:

[Bridget Burke]

48. Cool!

That would have been my first guess. Far better than that "Confederate" crap.

[Midlodemocrat]

30. If you guys ever get a chance to go to Jamestown, I highly

recommend it. There is a reconstructed settlement with re-enactors in Native American garb as well as Early American. It is really interesting. Great for families, too.

[YankeyMCC]

37. What's the old english equivalent phrase for

"Ah shit!"

Because I'm sure that came out of the poor fellow's mouth when he dropped his pistol down the well.

[Buttercup McToots]

39. Shyte

Tis Shyte...

[underpants]

38. Maybe we can get Congress to pass a bill to retroactively make sure

that no cops kick in their door and take it from them. Why not? It would do about as much good and be based on about as much evidence of that actually happening as the bullshit waste of time they passed yesterday.

WARNING-I am going to editorialize on this post.

[Lisa]

41. tell me more about the halberd!

I know, I know -- everyone's excited about the firearm ... but some of us are medieval history buffs, so there!

[Courtesy Flush]

44. Tossed in the well after a gallop-by shooting n/t