Image copyright DON EMMERT Image caption Mr Clifford said that during a previous expedition, he saw a metallic tube at the site which could be a cannon 
 
 But a team of experts headed by the former head of the Spanish National Museum on Underwater Archaeology, Xavier Nieto Prieto, concluded that the fasteners found at the site indicated "a technique of ship construction that dates the ship to the late 17th or 18th Century rather than the 15th or 16th Century". Very significantly, Unesco also seems to have moved towards the belief that the Santa Maria may be buried under sediments on what used to be seabed and is now coastal marshland. Unesco seems to think that the remains of the Santa Maria could be buried in one of two areas of marshland along the North coast of Haiti, near the small town of En Bas Saline, or alternatively near La Petite Anse. The Santa Maria was the flagship of Christopher Columbus’ three-vessel fleet which discovered the New World. In its report, the team also concluded that while the site where the wreck was found "is located in the general area where one would expect to find the Santa Maria based on contemporary accounts of Columbus's first voyage, it is further away from shore than one should expect".
– The United Nations' cultural body is on the trail of Christopher Columbus' flagship—and it says the wreck that an expedition identified as the Santa Maria earlier this year is a different, much younger ship. As predicted by authorities in Haiti, UNESCO experts say there is "indisputable proof" that the wreck found off the country's north coast is from a much later period than 1492, reports the BBC. UNESCO says the wreck is further from shore than accounts of Columbus' first voyage, and bronze or copper fasteners found at the site are evidence of shipbuilding techniques that date the ship to the late 17th or 18th century at the earliest. UNESCO says it believes the wreck may lie "under coastal sediment" in what is now marshland and has called for further investigation of the area. Marine archaeologist Barry Clifford, who first investigated the wreck 11 years ago, says Columbus-era lombard cannons spotted in the area are crucial pieces of evidence that now appear to have been looted from the site, the Independent reports. "The lombards are the smoking guns and, in my view, the most important pieces of evidence in the search for the Santa Maria," he says. (Columbus wrote about the 1492 sinking of the Santa Maria in his journal, but one historian believes that the explorer lied about the ship's fate as part of a spy plot.)