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Abstract
Uncritical use of flawed literature has allowed a number of misunderstandings to affect gunflint terminology and typology, thereby preventing the establishment of a reliable chronology. With reference to the most recent research into the subject, this article discusses gunflint terminology and, on this basis, a gunflint typo-chronology is suggested. As most British gunflint assemblages known from the archaeological literature tend to be late, and most terminological/typological problems in general appear to relate to 16th/17th-century gunflints, the recently discovered early gunflint assemblage from Dun Eistean, Lewis, Western Isles, has been given special attention.
| ABBREVIATIONS | ||
| PARP | = | Plymouth Archaeological Rediscovery Project |
| RCAHMS | = | Royal Commission on Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland |
| TNA: PRO | = | The National Archives: Public Record Office (Kew) |
| ABBREVIATIONS | ||
| PARP | = | Plymouth Archaeological Rediscovery Project |
| RCAHMS | = | Royal Commission on Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland |
| TNA: PRO | = | The National Archives: Public Record Office (Kew) |
The author would like to thank the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland for grant-aiding the Gunflint Project; Dr David Caldwell, Keeper of Scotland and Europe, National Museums Scotland, and Dr Stuart Campbell, Treasure Trove Unit, National Museums Scotland, for advice and comments on the manuscript; Beverley Ballin Smith, Glasgow University Archaeological Research Unit, for permission to use information on the assemblage from Dun Eistean; and Charlotte Francoz, Glasgow University’s Archaeological Research Unit, for allowing me to redraw/simplify her site plan of Dun Eistean. The Dun Eistean site archive is held by the NMR for Scotland, RCAHMS, Edinburgh.
Notes
1 e.g. Skertchley 1879; Chandler 1917; de Lotbiniere 1977; 1984; Delaney 1989; Fowler 1989; McNabb & Ashton 1990; Whittaker 2001.
2 e.g. Stone 1974; Blanchette 1975; White 1975; Hanson & Hsu 1975; Kenmotsu 1990; Elliott 1997; Davis et al. 1998; PARP 2002; Quinn 2004.
3 e.g. Witthoft 1966.
4 e.g. Smith 1960; Blanchette 1975.
5 e.g. ‘Nordic’ and ‘Dutch’ gunflints.
6 Not least by including important Web-based contributions.
7 For example, the various colonies and the gunflint trade.
8 For example, siege or blockade situations and subsequent raw material shortages.
9 Dolomieu 1960.
10 Blanchette 1975.
11 De Lotbiniere 1984.
12 Blanchette 1975.
13 e.g. Hanson & Hsu 1975, Fig. 43; Davis et al. 1998, fig. 327.
14 e.g. Inizan et al. 1992, 37.
15 Ashton et al. 1991.
16 McNabb & Ashton 1990, fig. 1.
17 Ballin 2005.
18 The author discussed this phenomenon with Dr Stuart Campbell, National Museums Scotland, who commented: ‘In precise terms, when the main charge ignites in a flintlock there is a high-pressure bleed-off which exits the touchhole as a high-temperature cloud of gas. This was of sufficient temperature that the 18th century Danish army rather sensibly fitted pan guards to their weapons … I think this is a very probable cause of the polish or powder-burn’.
19 Kenmotsu 1990, 103.
20 Skertchley (1879) noted that ‘a good flint will last a gunner about half a day’.
21 e.g. de Lotbiniere 1984, 206.
22 See Inizan et al. 1992.
23 Witthoft 1966.
24 Beckman 1846; this is itself a translation of a text c. 50 years earlier.
25 White 1975.
26 White 1975, 67.
27 Witthoft 1966, 26.
28 Witthoft 1966, 30.
29 White 1975, 67.
30 White 1975, 71.
31 Hess 1968.
32 See also de Lotbiniere 1984, 209: ‘… the Danes made wedges only’.
33 Witthoft 1966, 22.
34 Hess 1968.
35 Hess 1968.
36 cf. White 1975, fig. 1.
37 De Lotbiniere 1984, 207.
38 Dr Stuart Campbell, National Museums Scotland, comments on de Lotbiniere’s claim: ‘While not disregarding the possibility completely, unless there are good first hand accounts of this I suspect this is a retroactive justification. I say this as, by the last half of the 18th century, there is an increasing tendency in the British Army to use lead wraps between flint and cock-jaws to aid the grip. By about 1790, this appears to be universal. A good number of these wraps were designed to be wrapped around the rear of the flint and were not removable after firing’. Dr Campbell’s comment is highly relevant, and use-wear analysis may show whether the most symmetrical rectangular gunflints were turned or not. A used leading edge would almost always show distinct chipping.
39 e.g. de Lotbiniere 1984, 207; also see Delaney’s 1989 account of gunflints from two French 18th-century shipwrecks in the Pacific.
40 De Lotbiniere 1984, 206.
41 Skertchley 1879, 47.
42 A translation of the French term ‘ordinaire’; Delaney 1989, 113.
43 De Lotbiniere 1984, 207.
44 De Lotbiniere 1984, 207.
45 Blanchette 1975.
46 PARP 2002.
47 By this the author probably means the leading edge; see Fig. 1.
48 <http://plymoutharch.tripod.com/id71.html> [accessed 28 December 2011].
49 Carovillano 2002.
50 Barrowman 2007.
51 Barrowman 2007.
52 Outram & Batt 2010.
53 Ballin forthcoming a.
54 Ballin forthcoming a.
55 Ballin 2011.
56 e.g. Chandler 1917, 360.
57 Ballin forthcoming b.
58 Ballin 1999.
59 cf. Ballin 2005.
60 Use-wear suggests that some of these may also have been used as fire-flints.
61 At the site, lead projectiles have been recovered from the turf walls of structures facing the Lewisian mainland: Barrowman forthcoming.
62 Koch 1990; Mikkelsen 1991; 1994; Stapert & Johansen 1999; Ballin 2005.
63 Carovillano 2002.
64 Kidd 2006.
65 Kidd 2006, 68.
66 Ballin 2007; forthcoming b.
67 Davis 1997, 9; Whittaker 2001.
68 cf. Whittaker 2001.
69 Chandler 1917.
70 McNabb & Ashton 1990.
71 Ashton et al. 1991.
72 Inizan et al. 1992, 57.
73 Chandler 1917, fig. 65.
74 See also McNabb & Ashton 1990, fig. 1.
75 De Lotbiniere 1984.
76 De Lotbiniere 1984, 206.
77 cf. Fowler 1989.
78 De Lotbiniere 1984, 207.
79 Hanson & Hsu 1975, 72.
80 De Lotbiniere 1977, 43.
81 Skertchley 1879.
82 De Lotbiniere 1984, 207.
83 De Lotbiniere 1984, 207.
84 TNA: PRO WO 47/50, 282.
85 Bingeman 2004.
86 De Lotbiniere 1984, 207.
87 De Lotbiniere 1984, 206.
88 Ballin 2005.
89 e.g. Blanchette 1975.
90 De Lotbiniere 1977, 44.
91 According to Dolomieu (1960, 60), up to 50 pieces per core.
92 Woodward 1960, 35.
93 Delaney 1989, tables 1–2, fig. 7.
94 Crompton 2004.
95 De Lotbiniere 1977, 41.
96 De Lotbiniere 1977, 45.
97 White 1975, 70.
98 Tomlinson 1852, 689.
99 Dolomieu 1960.
100 Described in great detail by Skertchley 1879.
101 Skertchley 1879, 30, 33.
102 de Lotbinniere 1977, 46.
103 Mason n.d.
104 Davis 1997.
105 At least through an almost total neglect of non-French and non-British gunflint industries.
106 Hess 1968.
107 Woodall & Chelidonio 2006.
108 Woodall & Chelidonio 2006, figs 4, 13–14.
109 Woodall & Chelidonio 2006, fig. 8.
110 Roncal los Arcos et al. 1996.
111 Roncal los Arcos et al. 1996, fig. 4.
112 Roncal los Arcos et al. 1996, fig. 5.
113 Evans 1897, 21.
114 Blanchette 1975, fig. 11.
115 PARP 2002.
116 Blaine 2001.
117 Outram & Batt 2010.
118 De Lotbiniere 1984.
119 Ballin forthcoming a.
120 According to de Lotbiniere (1984, 206), it was their prominent bulb-of-percussion which gave them their ‘wedge’ shape.
121 e.g. Ballin 1999.
122 e.g. Finlayson 2000, 105; Callahan 1987, 63.
123 It should be borne in mind that not all gunflints or waste from the site’s gunflint production is necessarily contemporary.
124 Elliott 1997.
125 Elliott 1997, fig. 54.
126 Elliott 1997, 164.
127 This may be the rationale behind the mid 18th-cen-tury note from the Ordnance Board that musket and carbine flints could be used for quarterdeck guns.
128 Barrowman forthcoming.
This paper is published with financial assistance from the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland