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

Abstract

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 mechanismfrom the middle-seventeenth to the early-twentieth century in different contexts aroundthe 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 alliedconvoy 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 methodsare 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.