Talk:Molasses Reef Wreck

A fact from Molasses Reef Wreck appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 5 January 2011 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that the Molasses Reef Wreck in the Turks and Caicos Islands is the earliest wreck of a European ship in the Americas to be scientifically excavated?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2011/January.

Wikipedia

Shipwrecks Low‑importance

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Shipwrecks, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of shipwreck-related articles on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.ShipwrecksWikipedia:WikiProject ShipwrecksTemplate:WikiProject ShipwrecksShipwreck

Low

This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

Shipwreck-related priority open tasks:

To Do

Lady Elizabeth (1879)
- Clean up typos Currently working on it-----Completed!
- Improve grammar
- Add any additions if needed Still adding more information
- Discuss desired additions -None

Caribbean Low‑importance

	Caribbean portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Caribbean, an attempt to build a comprehensive guide to the countries of the Caribbean on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, you can edit this article, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion. If you are new to editing Wikipedia visit the welcome page to become familiar with the guidelines.CaribbeanWikipedia:WikiProject CaribbeanTemplate:WikiProject CaribbeanCaribbean
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

Pinta

I take it this isn't actually the Pinta. If it isn't, then it should explicitly state that when the word Pinta is mentioned. 188.222.170.156 (talk) 23:43, 5 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The on-line source for the statement says, "The salvors' argument that the wreck was Columbus' Pinta was, at best, thinly supported." I think it is clear in the article that the wreck remains unidentified. -- Donald Albury 02:26, 6 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified (February 2018)

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 3 external links on Molasses Reef Wreck. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 5 June 2024).

If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 01:16, 4 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Identification as caravel

Neither of the two excavation reports (now in Further reading) suggest that this wreck was a caravel. It may well have been, but there is no way of telling from the fragmentary remains. The cited reference appears to use a circular argument to state that the wreck was a caravel, but it is questionable as an RS since it is not peer-reviewed or published by an academic publisher. ThoughtIdRetired _TIR 09:06, 25 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Both the Museum website and Keith (2006) identify the wreck as a caravel. Keith does identify construction features typical of 15th- and 16th-century Spanish ships. As the identification of the wreck as a caravel is neither surprising nor controversial, I do not see the quality of the sources used in the article as a problem. Donald Albury 16:21, 25 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

(1) Museums do have a rather bad track record of producing inaccurate information on the subjects they cover. The visitor centre on the site of the battlefield of Culloden is perhaps the most notorious example. Whilst the material in this case may be accurate, there is no obligation of peer review or checking by experienced editors. So we have no way of knowing that it is accurate.

(2) Keith (2006) does not identify the wreck as being a caravel. The word "caravel" appears only twice in the article. The first is in the early (and now discounted) idea that the wreck was of the caravel Pinta. The second says Although scores of caravels and other types of exploratory vessels were wrecked in the Caribbean, only three have been located. That does not say that this wreck was a caravel.

(3) The article currently says The surviving parts of the hull showed construction techniques typical of 15th- and 16th-century Portuguese and Spanish ships, indicating this ship was a caravel.
(a) There is a large element of circularity in this statement. The construction techniques of Iberian ships of the 15th and 16th centuries are deduced from the excavation of the Molasses Reef wreck, two others in the same part of the world, and of 24M/San Juan in Red Bay, Newfoundland. The most characteristic of these techniques is the joining of the first futtock to the floors with dovetail joints cut into the mating surfaces of these frame elements.
(b) It is the assemblage of artefacts and the geological origin of the ballast that suggest that the ship was from the Iberian peninsula.
(c) Being built in Spain or Portugal does not make this ship a caravel. The same shipyards that built caravels built other sorts of vessels.

(4) The small size of the wreck is suggestive (to me) of this being a caravel. However, I have not found any published academic work that draws that conclusion – it certainly is not made in the main excavation report papers. To say that the wreck is likely to be a caravel based on its size would therefore be WP:OR.

In short, this may well be the wreck of a caravel, but we do not have an RS that says so. (I suggest that the archaeologists shy away from that because it would be a major statement in maritime archaeology and therefore come under extensive critical examination.) ThoughtIdRetired _TIR 20:54, 25 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Stop press: I have found a source that says Although only 2% of the hull survived below the ballast pile, these remains suggest that the Molasses Reef wreck was of the poorly understood caravel ship type. The reference is The Oxford handbook of maritime archaeology (First issued as an Oxford University Press paperback ed.). Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town: Oxford University Press. 2014. ISBN 9780199336005. page 636. Unfortunately they don't give reasoning – I would strongly suspect the size of the vessel being the decision-maker, but my suspicion is OR. We certainly need to consider whether or not the article's current indicating this ship was a caravel [bold added] is more certain than this source's suggest. I think that the latter is less certain than the former, certainly when the same sentence describes the type as poorly understood. The only possible criticism for this source is that this is a reference in passing (WP:CONTEXTMATTERS), as the section it is in focuses on the story of the ultimate protection of the wreck. I do, however, think that it would withstand that criticism. ThoughtIdRetired _TIR 21:23, 25 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I note that even in Carrell, Toni L.; Keith, Donald H. (1992). [10.1111/j.1095-9270.1992.tb00376.x "Replicating a ship of discovery: Santa Clara, a 16th-century Iberian caravel"]. International Journal of Nautical Archaeology. 21 (4): 281–294. doi:10.1111/j.1095-9270.1992.tb00376.x. ISSN 1095-9270. {{cite journal}}: Check |url= value (help), Keith still avoids labelling the Molasses Reef wreck as being a caravel. I am running out of sources to check, now. Might still find something else... ThoughtIdRetired _TIR 21:30, 25 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

...I think the sentence following your quote from Keith, which reads, Of these, the Molasses Reef wreck is the oldest, the most complete, and the most carefully excavated., indicates that the author does claim the wreck was a caravel. I haven't found a reliable source (I haven't looked at theses or anything posted to Researchgate or academia.edu) that calls the Molasses Reef wreck a caravel. Since I'm hip deep in research for a new article, and this point is not that important to me, I'll back out of this. - Donald Albury 02:03, 26 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]