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Originally Posted by Atlantia
I wonder, has the lineage of these knives been completely mapped?
I mean are the Gaucho knives decendants of Spanish knives and the North American bowie a hybrid of Gaucho and trade knives?
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No, the so called "gaucho knives" (they were not exclusive of the gauchos) and the bowie are independant. Abel Domenech has hypothesised that both could have common ancestors, and this applies only on the case of the puņal, not on the rest of the argentinean-uruguayan edged weapons. The puņal seems to have itīs ancestry in the Belduque, Albacete and Flandes knives brought by the Spaniards to our lands, as Domenech says. This is a very probable fact, though the history of this weapons is not an exact science and there could it be some uncertainties. You can find some examples of the Belduque knife on the web, associated to north american colonization. On the case of the bowie, it could be another spanish influences, as some forms of it are very similar to a certain type of mexican knives, but this is a a latter lineage not related with your knife.
Regards
Gonzalo