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Archaeology of shipwrecks
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Archaeology of shipwrecks
The archaeology of shipwrecks is the field of archaeology specialized most commonly in the study and exploration of shipwrecks. Its techniques combine those of archaeology with those of diving to become Underwater archaeology. However, shipwrecks are discovered on what have become terrestrial sites.
It is necessary to understand the processes and theories by which a wreck site is formed to take into account the distortions in the archaeological material caused by the filtering and scrambling of material remains that occurs during and after the wrecking process.
Prior to being wrecked, the ship would have operated as an organised machine, and its crew, equipment, passengers and cargo need to be considered as a system. The material remains should provide clues to the functions of seaworthiness, navigation and propulsion as well as to ship-board life. These clues can also infer how a ship functioned, in special regards to social, political, and economic systems. These underwater shipwreck sites are protected under the UNESCO Convention.
Shipwrecks that have been underwater for one hundred years or more are protected by the UNESCO Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage. This convention aims at preventing looting and the destruction or loss of historic and cultural information. It helps states parties to protect their underwater cultural heritage with an international legal framework.
A systematic model for the characterisation and interpretation of the archaeology of shipwrecks was first proposed by Keith Muckelroy in 1976 in a paper on the Kennemerland, which was wrecked in 1664. Muckelroy's system model describes the evolution of the material remains of the ship from the wrecking process, subsequent salvage operations and the disintegration and rearrangements of the remains from environmental factors. Although Muckelroy considered both natural processes and human activity in his model, subsequent research has mainly expanded the environmental factors and there has been little published on the human processes.
A paper by Martin Gibbs in 2006, expands Muckelroy's model to consider human behaviour at the time of the disaster and the long-term relationship between people and shipwrecks. This model uses studies of humans involved in disasters to characterise the human activity into phases around the time of the wrecking. This model considers:
Of the many examples where the sea bed provides an extremely hostile environment for submerged evidence of history, one of the most notable, the RMS Titanic, though a relatively young wreck and in deep water so calcium-starved that concretion does not occur, appears strong and relatively intact, though indications are that it has already incurred irreversible degradation of her steel and iron hull. As such degradation inevitably continues, data will be forever lost, objects' context will be destroyed and the bulk of the wreck will over centuries completely deteriorate on the floor of the Atlantic Ocean. Comparative evidence shows that all iron and steel ships, especially those in a highly oxygenated environment, continue to degrade and will continue to do so until only their engines and other machinery project much above the sea-floor. Where it remains even after the passage of time, the iron or steel hull is often fragile with no remaining metal within the layer of concretion and corrosion products. The USS Monitor, having been found in the 1970s, was subjected to a program of attempted in situ preservation, for example, but deterioration of the vessel progressed at such a rate that the rescue of her turret was undertaken lest nothing be saved from the wreck.
Some wrecks, lost to natural obstacles to navigation, are at risk of being smashed by subsequent wrecks sunk by the same hazard, or are deliberately destroyed because they present a hazard to navigation. Even in deep water, commercial activities such as pipe-laying operations and deep sea trawling can place a wreck at risk. Such a wreck is the Mardi Gras shipwreck sunk in the Gulf of Mexico in 4,000 feet (1,200 meters) of water. The shipwreck lay forgotten at the bottom of the sea until it was discovered in 2002 by an oilfield inspection crew working for the Okeanos Gas Gathering Company (OGGC). Large pipelines can crush sites and render some of their remnants inaccessible as pipe is dropped from the ocean surface to the substrate thousands of feet below. Trawl nets snag and tear superstructures and separate artifacts from their context.
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Archaeology of shipwrecks
The archaeology of shipwrecks is the field of archaeology specialized most commonly in the study and exploration of shipwrecks. Its techniques combine those of archaeology with those of diving to become Underwater archaeology. However, shipwrecks are discovered on what have become terrestrial sites.
It is necessary to understand the processes and theories by which a wreck site is formed to take into account the distortions in the archaeological material caused by the filtering and scrambling of material remains that occurs during and after the wrecking process.
Prior to being wrecked, the ship would have operated as an organised machine, and its crew, equipment, passengers and cargo need to be considered as a system. The material remains should provide clues to the functions of seaworthiness, navigation and propulsion as well as to ship-board life. These clues can also infer how a ship functioned, in special regards to social, political, and economic systems. These underwater shipwreck sites are protected under the UNESCO Convention.
Shipwrecks that have been underwater for one hundred years or more are protected by the UNESCO Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage. This convention aims at preventing looting and the destruction or loss of historic and cultural information. It helps states parties to protect their underwater cultural heritage with an international legal framework.
A systematic model for the characterisation and interpretation of the archaeology of shipwrecks was first proposed by Keith Muckelroy in 1976 in a paper on the Kennemerland, which was wrecked in 1664. Muckelroy's system model describes the evolution of the material remains of the ship from the wrecking process, subsequent salvage operations and the disintegration and rearrangements of the remains from environmental factors. Although Muckelroy considered both natural processes and human activity in his model, subsequent research has mainly expanded the environmental factors and there has been little published on the human processes.
A paper by Martin Gibbs in 2006, expands Muckelroy's model to consider human behaviour at the time of the disaster and the long-term relationship between people and shipwrecks. This model uses studies of humans involved in disasters to characterise the human activity into phases around the time of the wrecking. This model considers:
Of the many examples where the sea bed provides an extremely hostile environment for submerged evidence of history, one of the most notable, the RMS Titanic, though a relatively young wreck and in deep water so calcium-starved that concretion does not occur, appears strong and relatively intact, though indications are that it has already incurred irreversible degradation of her steel and iron hull. As such degradation inevitably continues, data will be forever lost, objects' context will be destroyed and the bulk of the wreck will over centuries completely deteriorate on the floor of the Atlantic Ocean. Comparative evidence shows that all iron and steel ships, especially those in a highly oxygenated environment, continue to degrade and will continue to do so until only their engines and other machinery project much above the sea-floor. Where it remains even after the passage of time, the iron or steel hull is often fragile with no remaining metal within the layer of concretion and corrosion products. The USS Monitor, having been found in the 1970s, was subjected to a program of attempted in situ preservation, for example, but deterioration of the vessel progressed at such a rate that the rescue of her turret was undertaken lest nothing be saved from the wreck.
Some wrecks, lost to natural obstacles to navigation, are at risk of being smashed by subsequent wrecks sunk by the same hazard, or are deliberately destroyed because they present a hazard to navigation. Even in deep water, commercial activities such as pipe-laying operations and deep sea trawling can place a wreck at risk. Such a wreck is the Mardi Gras shipwreck sunk in the Gulf of Mexico in 4,000 feet (1,200 meters) of water. The shipwreck lay forgotten at the bottom of the sea until it was discovered in 2002 by an oilfield inspection crew working for the Okeanos Gas Gathering Company (OGGC). Large pipelines can crush sites and render some of their remnants inaccessible as pipe is dropped from the ocean surface to the substrate thousands of feet below. Trawl nets snag and tear superstructures and separate artifacts from their context.
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