Small Detail Settles Maritime Mystery at Ground Zero ..

It wasn’t until the wooden elements of the hull were gingerly removed by AKRF, a consulting firm, from the excavation site in Lower Manhattan, cleaned up at the Maryland Archaeological Conservation Laboratory and inspected by shipwrights from Mystic Seaport in Connecticut and other nautical archaeologists that the question was settled.
A gudgeon helped seal the case.

Small Detail Settles Maritime Mystery at Ground Zero - NYTimes.com