Zena’s map has made a lot of noise on The Curse of Oak Island (COOI) so far. Its authenticity has been debated both on the show and in fan communities. It has guided part of the work done by the COOI team. Today I’d like to take a good, close, long overdue look at it.…
The Capuchins of Pedra Furada: Did non-human primates create the oldest known stone tool assemblages in Brazil?
For several decades now, Brazilian sites like Pedra Furada have claimed archaeological material dating back as far as 30ky ago. That would be about double the age of the oldest securely dated archaeological material in the Americas. I’ve commented on these sites before. My opinion so far is that the assemblages could very well have…
Oak Island Archaeology Update: Is the decorated copper object a gorget?
The Curse of Oak Island (COOI) E06S10 brought us one of the more interesting finds of the team in a long time. As an archaeologist, I am of course interested in old ox shoes and random fragments of stoves dumped in fill. We can learn a lot from those, from their spatial distribution, from their…
Oak Island Archaeology Update: An actual, accurate translation of the letter from the commander of the Castor and the Aurore
Seasons 9 and 10 of the Curse of Oak Island (COOI) make a big deal of the Duc d’Anville’s fairly disastrous 1746 naval expedition to Nova Scotia. The COOI team speculate that the expedition might have been a cover for sending a great treasure to Oak Island and burying it in what became the Money…
Curse of Oak Island archaeology update: Did they find an ancient rectangular copper trade token?
Episodes 2 and 3 of The Curse of Oak Island (COOI) devote some time to the finding and analysis of a rectangular piece of copper. Having dabbled over the years in the early history and archaeology of metallurgy, this one was immediately intriguing to me. The COOI team initially hoped it was some kind of…
ArcheoThoughts 