Maritime archaeology is a discipline within archaeology as a whole that specifically studies human interaction with the sea, lakes and rivers through the study of associated physical remains, be they vessels, shore-side facilities, port-related structures, cargoes, human remains and submerged landscapes. A specialty within maritime archaeology is nautical archaeology, which studies ship construction and use.
Underwater archaeology is archaeology practiced underwater. As with all other branches of archaeology, it evolved from its roots in pre-history and in the classical era to include sites from the historical and industrial eras.
Naval warfare is combat in and on the sea, the ocean, or any other battlespace involving a major body of water such as a large lake or wide river.
A shipwreck is the wreckage of a ship that is located either beached on land or sunken to the bottom of a body of water. Shipwrecking may be intentional or unintentional. There were approximately three million shipwrecks worldwide as of January 1999, according to Angela Croome, a science writer and author who specialized in the history of underwater archaeology.
Historical archaeology is a form of archaeology dealing with places, things, and issues from the past or present when written records and oral traditions can inform and contextualize cultural material. These records can both complement and conflict with the archaeological evidence found at a particular site. Studies focus on literate, historical- period societies as opposed to non-literate, prehistoric societies. While they may not have generated the records, the lives of people for whom there was little need for written records, such as the working class, slaves, indentured labourers, and children but who live in the historical period can also be the subject of study. The sites are found on land and underwater. Industrial archaeology, unless practiced at industrial sites from the prehistoric era, is a form of historical archaeology concentrating on the remains and products of industry and the Industrial era.
The year 1999 in archaeology involved some significant events.
David Gibbins is an underwater archaeologist and a bestselling novelist.
Jeremy Black is a British historian, writer, and former professor of history at the University of Exeter. He is a senior fellow at the Center for the Study of America and the West at the Foreign Policy Research Institute in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, US.
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.
James Preston Delgado is an American maritime archaeologist, historian, maritime preservation expert, author, television host, and explorer. Delgado is a maritime archaeologist with over four decades of experience in underwater exploration. He has participated in over 100 shipwreck investigations worldwide, including notable sites such as the RMS Titanic, USS Independence (CVL-22), USS Conestoga (AT-54), USS Monitor, USS Arizona (BB-39), USS Nevada (BB-36), Sub Marine Explorer, the buried Gold Rush ships of San Francisco, the atomic bomb test fleet at Bikini Atoll, the slave ship Clotilda, and Kublai Khan's lost fleet from the Mongol invasions of Japan.
Mensun Bound is a British maritime archaeologist born in Stanley, Falkland Islands. He is best known as director of exploration for two expeditions to the Weddell Sea which led to the rediscovery of the Endurance, in which Sir Ernest Shackleton and a crew of 27 men sailed for the Antarctic on the 1914–1917 Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition. The ship sank after being crushed by the ice on 21 November 1915. It was rediscovered by the Endurance22 expedition on 5 March 2022.
Jack Kenneth Loney was an amateur Australian maritime historian who published over one hundred books and numerous newspaper and magazine articles. He was a schoolteacher and principal until his retirement. He became interested in maritime history after preparing several general history booklets covering the Otway region of western Victoria, Australia.
SM U-95 was one of the 329 submarines serving in the Imperial German Navy in World War I. U-95 was engaged in the naval warfare and took part in the First Battle of the Atlantic. She was rammed and sunk by the steamship SS Breaneil off the Lizard Peninsula on 7 January 1918. The wreck was found and identified by archaeologist Innes McCartney in 2006.
Charles T. Meide Jr., known as Chuck Meide, is an underwater and maritime archaeologist and currently the Director of LAMP, the research arm of the St. Augustine Lighthouse & Maritime Museum located in St. Augustine, Florida. Meide, of Syrian descent on his father's side, was born in Jacksonville, Florida, and raised in the adjacent coastal town of Atlantic Beach. He earned BA and MA degrees in Anthropology with a focus in underwater archaeology in 1993 and 2001 from Florida State University, where he studied under George R. Fischer, and undertook Ph.D. studies in Historical Archaeology at the College of William and Mary starting the following year.
King Philip was a 19th-century clipper ship launched in 1856 and wrecked in 1878. The wreck of this ship is only rarely visible; very infrequently the timbers can be seen protruding from the sands of Ocean Beach, on the Pacific Ocean coast of San Francisco, California. The wreck is the "most complete remains of an American medium clipper." This is a shipwreck of one of many ships that were wrecked in and around San Francisco Bay.
Innes McCartney is a British nautical archaeologist and historian. He is a Visiting Fellow at Bournemouth University in the UK.
The Maritime Silk Road or Maritime Silk Route is the maritime section of the historic Silk Road that connected Southeast Asia, East Asia, the Indian subcontinent, the Arabian Peninsula, eastern Africa, and Europe. It began by the 2nd century BCE and flourished until the 15th century CE. The Maritime Silk Road was primarily established and operated by Austronesian sailors in Southeast Asia who sailed large long-distance ocean-going sewn-plank and lashed-lug trade ships. The route was also utilized by the dhows of the Persian and Arab traders in the Arabian Sea and beyond, and the Tamil merchants in South Asia. China also started building their own trade ships (chuán) and followed the routes in the later period, from the 10th to the 15th centuries CE.
The Kennemerland was a Dutch East Indiaman that was lost off the Out Skerries, Shetland, in 1664. It was carrying cargo from the Netherlands to the Dutch East Indies, and had taken the northern route to avoid interception by the English, since the Second Anglo-Dutch War was expected to start soon. There were just three survivors. The islanders salvaged what they could, but there were disputes over ownership of the spoil. The vessel's excavation in the 1970s was one of the earliest exercises in the new discipline of maritime archaeology.
Margaret E. "Peggy" Leshikar-Denton is an archaeologist specialising in underwater archaeology, and director of the Cayman Islands National Museum.
