The Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology ISSN: (Print) ( Submerged prehistory in the Americas: Methods, approaches and results (original) (raw)
Related papers
2011_The Development of Maritime Archaeology
A. Catsambis, B. Ford, And D. Hamilton, eds.,The Oxford Handbook of Maritime Archaeology, 2011
THE importance of maritime cultures to the history of humankind is clear. Only by watercraft have some areas of our planet, from Australia to the smaller islands of the Earth's seas and oceans, been discovered, explored, settled, exploited, supplied, and defended. The myriad uses of watercraft include fishing and whaling, the transport of goods and people, warfare, exploration, and recreation. Watercraft require crews, usually drawn from the people living near the coasts. Additionally, watercraft require "homes;' from simple sloping shores on which they may be beached to large and complex ports and harbors, the latter requiring specialized workers both for construction and later for utilization. These workers, in turn, as well as sailors, porters, merchants, and their families, require an infrastructure of support that includes at least temporary or permanent living quarters, suppliers of food and other essentials, land transport, maintenance installations including shipyards and chandleries, and financial, storage, and entertainment facilities.
2011_The Development of Maritime Archaeology_OHMA
Alexis Catsambis, Ben Ford, and Donny L Hamilton, eds., Oxford Handbook of Maritime Archaeology, 2012
THE importance of maritime cultures to the history of humankind is clear. Only by watercraft have some areas of our planet, from Australia to the smaller islands of the Earth's seas and oceans, been discovered, explored, settled, exploited, supplied, and defended. The myriad uses of watercraft include fishing and whaling, the transport of goods and people, warfare, exploration, and recreation. Watercraft require crews, usually drawn from the people living near the coasts. Additionally, watercraft require "homes;' from simple sloping shores on which they may be beached to large and complex ports and harbors, the latter requiring specialized workers both for construction and later for utilization. These workers, in turn, as well as sailors, porters, merchants, and their families, require an infrastructure of support that includes at least temporary or permanent living quarters, suppliers of food and other essentials, land transport, maintenance installations including shipyards and chandleries, and financial, storage, and entertainment facilities.
2013
Scientific archaeology developed largely in the nineteenth century, slowly emerging from the unrestrained curiosity of antiquarians into a systematic, disciplined, and research-oriented study. Maritime archaeology went through a similar evolution during the first three quarters of the twentieth century, and it was some time before archaeologists working on sites underwater regularly utilized theoretical frameworks to better interpret their work, as were their terrestrial counterparts. As late as the 1970s, Keith Muckelroy (1978:10) noted that maritime archaeology displayed "a remarkable lack of development or systematization," constituting an "academic immaturity," when compared to other archaeological sub-disciplines. At that time maritime archaeology was still a relatively nascent study, and was only just approaching a position where its practitioners could make tentative movement towards defining the nature of the discipline and developing a relevant paradigm. In the ensuing decades, the discipline has matured considerably, though the perception of some persists that maritime archaeologists are more antiquarians than archaeologists, with more interest in the particular (and often spectacular) material remains recovered than the use of such material culture to meaningfully speculate on the societies that left them behind. This is in spite of a significant and expanding body of literature published by maritime archaeologists that is both theoretical and thought-provoking. This perception otherwise may be explained by the fact that theoretical engagement in maritime archaeology, like the field itself, is relatively new, and that for much of the history of underwater archaeology effort was focused on methodological advances necessary to safely and efficiently work in a hostile environment, by people who were not always trained archaeologists. Many of the early advances in maritime archaeology were made by avocationals or professionals from other disciplines, and to this day the field includes a number of individuals working outside archaeological academia and its ongoing theoretical discourse. It is indisputable, however, that at present theory is used in maritime archaeology, and as theoretical approaches continue to develop, the potential for maritime archaeology to interpret past human experience, and to influence broader debates within archaeology, is substantial (Flatman 2003). This paper attempts to provide an overview of the development of theory in maritime archaeology, by evaluating key events, people, and ideas that have contributed to the discipline as it has evolved from the early twentieth century to the present day.
Keith Muckelroy: Methods, Ideas and Maritime Archaeology
Between his graduation from the Department of Archaeology at Cambridge University in 1974 and his death in 1980, Keith Muckelroy's work and ideology were crucial in promoting an alternative research methodology in maritime archaeology. Instead of a particularist or historiographic approach, methods prominent both then and now, Muckelroy's methodology was grounded in the foundations of the prehistoric archaeology he learned under Grahame Clark and David Clarke at Cambridge, and the basic tenets of New Archaeology maturing in the United States during the 1970s. This paper, which elucidates Muckelroy's methods and research, is neither a complete biography nor an exhaustive study of his ideas. Although unpublished letters, papers and notes were studied in archives at Cambridge University and the National Maritime Museum, there is still much more to be learned from many of his former colleagues and their memories-only a handful of those individuals were consulted during the creation of this work. Nevertheless, this paper was written in the hope that by understanding Muckelroy's ideas, and placing them in the larger framework of the discipline of archaeology, maritime archaeologists who are attempting to pursue a variety of approaches may find inspirations, models and, perhaps, questions that still need to be answered.
A History of Maritime Archaeological Thought
Contemporary Philosophy for Maritime Archaeology, 2023
This chapter reviews maritime archaeological theory and changing paradigms from the first shipwreck excavation in the 11th century AD through the advent of modern maritime archaeology in 1960 and contemporary theory today. The chapter is published in Contemporary Philosophy for Maritime Archaeology (2023), which is available to read for free on the Sidestone website: https://www.sidestone.com/books/contemporary-philosophy-for-maritime-archaeology
The archaeology of submerged prehistoric sites on the North Pacific Coast of North America
The Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology, 2020
We review the history of underwater archaeological investigations of submerged prehistoric remains on the North Pacific Coast of North America, divided into three phases: Phase 1 (1960s-1981)hypotheses and "wet-site archaeology"; Phase 2 (1981-1994)operationalized scuba explorations of submerged anchor stone accumulations and the Montague Harbour Underwater Archaeology Project; and Phase 3 (1995-present)refined modeling of regional sea beds for areas of high archaeological potential on submerged relict shorelines with limited testing and identification of late Pleistocene and early Holocene archaeological deposits on near-shore intertidal and interior upland strandlines. The latter part of Phase 3 also saw the potential for submerged prehistoric cultural resources integrated into consideration of development project assessments. Finally, the Coastal Migration Route for early migration to the Americas shifted from a peripheral proposition to a central complimentary paradigm. These multiple streams of theory, modeling, and pragmatic effort are poised to converge in a new era of practical underwater archaeological research on the North Pacific Coast.
Preface: Oxford Handbook of Maritime Archaeology
2011
Inquisitiveness is at the core of human nature. The same can be said for persistence in the face of overcoming boundaries, whether perceived or real. The sea is perhaps the greatest boundary that humankind has looked upon through most of history. This timeless relationship between humanity and the "wine-dark sea" is, therefore, inseparably linked with what it is to be human. It is the lasting physical traces of this effort to overcome the wet element that maritime archaeology attempts to illuminate. With this volume we hope to show the current state of this field, entering its sixth decade, now on firm footing and spreading its sails in all directions.
Nautical Archaeology: Theory and Method
Archaeology as a field has developed over the years, with it receiving a considerable technological boost in the 20 th -21 st Century. The timeframe for this boost has considerably shortened in the last decade, with scientific advancements running in tandem with the budding archaeological field, particularly techniques and interpretive aids. Archaeology has also developed several offshoots, back from the period when Alfred Kidder first employed a team of specialists for systematic excavation-now, archaeology can definitely be considered an interdisciplinary, if not multi-disciplinary social science (for the lack of a single unifying interpretive model and the lack of scientific empiricist, experimental degree in methodology). Archaeology includes the involvement of Botanists, Paleo-botanists, Zoologists, Ethnographers, Geneticists, Anthropologists and a plethora of other experts to widen its scope and accuracy during every step of the process. In lieu, this also involves liberal help and undertakings of various fields involved, including sociological studies, post-modern streams of thought and many others, to name a few. This introduction is aimed to impress upon the reader the versatile field that archaeology has become, and we now arrive at the focus of the paper-Nautical Archaeology. Nautical Archaeology has also tremendously benefitted from the ever increasing scholarly and technological advancement, and this paper aims to educate the reader about the ever increasing scope of this field, beginning with the bare essentials, like definitions et al. Section I of the paper will cover the Definition and development of the field in tandem with other scientific advancements and finds. Section II will explore the techniques and grant conceptual depth to Underwater Excavation, with examples. Section III will crystallize the concepts explored in the previous sections, and highlight the importance of Nautical Archaeology as a field.