A bronze cannon abandoned by the Spanish about 480 years ago has been found in Arizona.
Researchers believe that what is called a “wall gun” dates from the 1539-1542 expedition of Spanish explorer Vázquez de Coronado, who scoured the southwest seeking gold he never found.
The gun is the oldest firearm ever found in the continental United States, according to Popular Mechanics.
A study published in the “International Journal of Historical Archaeology” reports that the cannon was found in 2020 under the floor of a Spanish stone-and-adobe structure in Nogales, Arizona, in a place Coronado called San Geronimo III.
The 40-pound conquistador ‘wall gun’ needed two people to operate. https://t.co/wJG58ilwUR
— Popular Science (@PopSci) November 28, 2024
“This wall gun is the first gun known to be associated with the Coronado expedition and is the oldest firearm ever found within the continental USA and perhaps the oldest cannon currently known on the continent,” the study said.
The cannon is 42 inches long and weighs 40 pounds. The specimen found was never fired.
A wall gun was usually put on a tripod and operated by two people. It fired buckshot and lead balls used to destroy thin walls, according to The Washington Post.
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The gun fired after a slow-burning length of match cord reached priming powder on a flat ledge around the touch hole.
“I was in shock,” Deni Seymour, archaeologist and lead author, said, “It was just an odd feeling that I rarely get.”
“An artifact like this can connect people to the past, to history, and really stirs their imagination,” Seymour said.
She said she has since discovered a second cannon similar to the first.
“The cannon is pretty darn wonderful, but each artifact we find and the context of them has the potential to convey a really interesting part of the story,” she said. “And that’s what’s fun about it. That’s what’s interesting, and that’s what keeps me going.”
Archaeologists Accidentally Discovered the Oldest Gun Ever Found in America. Specifically a bronze cannon, or “wall gun” associated with the Coronado expedition. https://t.co/ULGFzIWNyO
— rblumel (@rblumel) December 14, 2024
The cannon’s plain design implies it was made in the Americas, according to Archaeology magazine.
Weapons made in Spain were more ornate.
Seymour said that an attack by the Native Americans in the region could have forced the Spanish to retreat from what had been a site used as a base, leaving the gun behind.
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