"What Is It???" Wednesday: Maritime Edition

A couple of weeks ago some of the FPAN staff visited the Lighthouse Archaeological Maritime Program at the St. Augustine Lighthouse.  While there, Director Chuck Meide and Conservationist Starr Cox showed us a few of the items currently being cleaned and preserved in their lab.  One in particular caught my eye:

Our item of WIIW intrigue rests atop the bucket of solution that, for the time being, is its home.

LAMP worked with Flagler Hospital's Imaging Center to get an x-ray of the iron concretion, and this image emerged:



X-ray of an iron concretion found during LAMP's maritime archaeology field school.



So...what is it, landlubbers?

UPDATE: Our last WIIW post 

Bola stones have been found in archaeological sites the world over.  Used as weapons for capturing animals by binding their lower legs, the stones would have been tied to opposite ends of a leather strip.  The user would hold the center of the strip, swinging the bolas around before releasing.

For examples of bolas found in the archaeological record, here are a few sites to check out:

Aucilla River Paleoindian Site in Florida: http://www.archaeology.org/9703/newsbriefs/aucilla.html

Poverty Point Site (Louisiana): http://www.crt.state.la.us/archaeology/virtualbooks/LAPREHIS/ppt.htm

Winners' Circle:

Our latest winner, Ralph, won one of our WIIW entries all the way from Nottingham, England!  Chime in and you, too, could bask in the glory of FPAN swag!



We sent Ralph some Florida sunshine along with his spiffy FPAN gear.