Photos: Artifacts of a Failed Spanish Colony

Stone Cannonball

Emanuel Point III Artifacts

(Image credit: University of Western Florida)

A diver holds a stone cannonball found at the wreck site of the Emanuel Point II. The Luna expedition occurred only 60 years after Columbus first sailed across the Atlantic, Cook said, and sailors were still perfecting the process: Ships were getting bigger and weapons more complicated. Expeditions were also dealing with relatively new problems like how to preserve food and water for months-long journeys, Cook said.

[Read more about the Spanish shipwreck]

Stephanie Pappas
Live Science Contributor

Stephanie Pappas is a contributing writer for Live Science, covering topics ranging from geoscience to archaeology to the human brain and behavior. She was previously a senior writer for Live Science but is now a freelancer based in Denver, Colorado, and regularly contributes to Scientific American and The Monitor, the monthly magazine of the American Psychological Association. Stephanie received a bachelor's degree in psychology from the University of South Carolina and a graduate certificate in science communication from the University of California, Santa Cruz.