Excavation at Aguas Buenas, Robinson CrusoeudIsland, Chile, of a gunpowder magazine and theudsupposed campsite of Alexander Selkirk, togetherudwith an account of early navigational dividers

摘要

Excavations were undertaken of a ruined building at Aguas Buenas, identified as an 18th-century Spanish gunpowder magazine. Evidence was also found for the campsite of an early European occupant of the island. A case is made that this was Alexander Selkirk, a castaway here from 1704 to 1709. Selkirk was the model for Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe. A detailed discussion is given of a fragment of copper alloy identifi ed as being from a pair of navigational dividers.