Archaeologists have discovered Spanish coins placed near the Strait of Magellan in southern Chile as part of a ritual performed by settlers more than 400 years ago.
The coin is an important clue for archaeologists investigating the colony, as it matches extant records from 1584 of Christian rituals involving coins, which was standard practice at the time the Spanish colony was founded. The discovery will also help verify old maps of long-lost settlements.
“This discovery provides a rare and powerful point of convergence between written sources and archaeological evidence,” Soledad González Díaz, the project’s lead researcher and a historian at Bernardo O’Higgins University in Santiago, told Live Science.
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“It not only helps us to identify the location and layout of the main buildings in the settlement, but also opens up new possibilities for reconstruction.” [its] It’s the spatial configuration,” she said.
The “8 Real” coin (Spanish for “Real de a Ocho”, the original pirate “part of eight”) was minted from silver in the 16th century. The stone was discovered in March during archaeological excavations at the ruins of Ciudad del Rey Don Felipe, a doomed Spanish colony founded in 1584 on the north side of the Strait of Magellan.
The coin was discovered on a stone within the underground foundations of the settlement’s first church. (According to historical reports, there may have been more than one church.) González Díaz said that all Spanish colonies in the New World were founded with similar rituals, and that their exact locations were noted in the writings of Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa, a Spanish navigator who placed coins on stones.
She said many of the same researchers used Sarmiento de Gamboa’s work to discover two bronze cannons at the site in 2019, and the latest discovery is further evidence of his accuracy.
colony of destiny
The Spanish crown established the colony of Rey Don Felipe in 1584, following reports that the English privateer Francis Drake had used the Straits of Magellan to navigate between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans in 1578 (at the time the English were enemies of Spain).
The strait was navigated in 1520 by Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan, then sailing to Spain, and for many years was the only known route to the Pacific Ocean. Spain claimed land on both sides of the strait and hoped to fortify it to prevent enemy passage.
However, the colony established to support the fortress (called Ciudad del Rey Don Felipe, after King Philip II of Spain) was a disaster. Most of the approximately 350 settlers died of disease, starvation, and extreme cold within a few years of the colony’s establishment. Spain was attempting to resupply the colony of Rey Don Felipe. However, the ship was wrecked in a storm, and after Sarmiento de Gamboa was captured by the English in 1586, the idea was all abandoned. In 1587, the crew of an English ship reported that the colony was in ruins, with only a few survivors left.
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historical discovery
Francisco Garrido, an archaeologist at Chile’s National Museum of Natural History in Santiago, told Live Science that archaeologists used metal detectors and geolocation equipment to map the doomed settlement and were able to pinpoint the location of the stones and coins underground.
This location allowed the team to better understand the layout of the 16th century settlement. “Now we can know for sure that this is where the church was, and from there we can easily find out where all the other structures were built,” Garrido said.
Simón Urbina, an archaeologist at the University of Southern Chile and another member of the research team, told Live Science that the coin helped validate the colonial map created by Sarmiento de Gamboa, but other structures still need to be verified.
“Evidence for huts, churches and stockades is not yet completely clear and has not been confirmed archaeologically,” he said in an email, adding that further excavations are needed to confirm the existence of these structures.
The researchers’ research shows that the site was inhabited by indigenous peoples before and after colonial times, suggesting that the Spaniards chose the site in hopes of survival.
However, the Spaniards quickly ran out of food. “The first winter must have taken its toll on the adults who arrived from Spain and were planning to hunt in unfamiliar territory,” Urbina said.
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