The Sustainable Management of Maritime Archaeology: National Budgets, Museums, and People.

Jason Lain Lunze

“We all have our time machines. Some take us back, they're called memories. Some take us forward, they're called dreams.” Jeremy Irons

Introduction:

            The word “sustainable” has become a buzz word in the academia over the last 20 years or so, largely as it spread away from centers of academia and into the public consciousness.  It is a word which is hard to describe and define as it is almost an adjective to any other which it is linked to.  Even worse it has become culturally linked as a synonym to compromise.  There has been precedent in maritime archaeology starting in the 1980’s with publications showing maritime cultural resources as a finite resource (Prott 2000, 269).  On the verso of that coin some of the most effective national programs which where introduced around the world in the late 1980’s were implemented with the limited resource of available personnel (Jameson and Scott-Ireton 2007, 33-35).  In our ever expanding society, maritime finds are under threat from our modern industrial aggregate and shipping industries (Adams et al. 1990, 13). Wrecks and submerged settlements are also under threat from the draining of submerged surfaces for agriculture (Willems 1997, 35-37).  These non-renewable resources are also under threat from the ravages of sport divers and salvage companies through ignorance or intended malice (Prott 2000, 599).  With all this one can see the urgency in recording known sites and protecting them, but the question naturally turns to funding and supportive structures.  Regardless if you think that archaeology and historic preservation is taxes well spent as many archaeologists say, the sustainability of the most expensive branch of archaeology is a subject which must be addressed. 

Indeed sustainability is fundamental in the ethos which goes behind the International charter on the protection and management of underwater cultural heritage developed by the International Council on Monuments and Sites in their advisory role to UNESCO.  International corporations and lobbying agencies are beginning to support the sustainable caretaking of submerged resources to protect from bad publicity and criminal prosecution (Newell and Garner 2006, 8-13). With all the good will and good intentions that archaeologist, cultural historians, governments, and private industry have towards the field of maritime archaeology; the three limiting non-renewable resources protecting cultural heritage are the small number of professional maritime archaeologists, their lack of time, and the lack of funding for rescue excavations let alone long-term research to sustain their population.  The problem is not limited to the community of maritime archaeology alone; we are after all an interconnected discipline, like the biological diversity which inspired the first concepts of sustainability (Jameson and Scott Ireton 2007, 33-41).

 If we are to talk about how the trans-national spread of common empathy occurred to start protecting maritime heritage and how we fund this endeavor we must tackle an even bigger issue at the heart of all archaeology and historic preservation, the notion of “value”.

“Use of the term “value” is increasingly permeating public, private, and international discourses on heritage management.  We hear about human vs. material values, tangibles vs. intangibles, moral vs. corrupt values, and religious vs. secular values.  In many of our discussions, the word “value” is used interchangeably with other terms such as attribute, quality, and interest.  But the term “value” is useful because it commonly connotes humanistic and emotional qualities.  Values relate to tangibles and intangibles that define what is important to people.  In all societies a sense of well-being is associated with the need to connect with and appreciate heritage values.  In heritage management, we commonly articulate

‘values” as attributes given to sites, objects, and resources, and associated intellectual and emotional connections that make them important and define their significance for a person, group, or community (Jameson and Scott-Ireton 2007, 1).

            Such a sense of humanism is not new to archaeology as a discipline.  Popular books by historical archaeologists like Ivor Noel-Hume including All the Best Rubbish, being an antiquary’s accounts of the pleasures and perils of studying and collecting everyday objects from the past poignantly demonstrate the human attachment to the past and it’s relics.  As Ivor Noel-Hume says, “Perhaps by means of controllable retrocognition man will eventually find a way of bridging time, but until he does, conscious imagination remains our only vehicle, a time machine powered by the images and artifacts that the past has left in its wake (1974, 55).”  It is because a certain portion of the human population values the past and the fact that our only way of studying its remains which are a non-renewable resource that we have the common ground to engage each other.  This means that while they may seem like disparate branches to some, the archaeologist can have a common value set as the museum curator as well as the artifact and art conservator.  Beyond this, sustainability of this field lies not in the hands of governments or scientists, but in the common people who go to museums and vote to pay those taxes which we say are well spent (Knell 2004, 179-184). That being said, the majority of legislation has not been sponsored by the local farm boy turned activist, but by established archaeologists working in the field with knowledge of how their governments and institutions work together, and even with a collective empathy or common goal such as the ICOMOS Charter many nations and individuals disagree on how and what to value and protect (Dromgoole 2006).

            While the ICOMOS Charter may be one of the first internationally empathetic ways of dealing with our collective cultural heritage in the world’s oceans, seas, and rivers, the charter is the end result of many decades of local activists’ endeavors to protect their regional and national cultural heritage.  This is also one of the reasons why the many participants of the ICOMOS Charter had so many conflicting interests.  National identities always play a part of how any project gets funded and to what extent it is valued.  The following sections of this paper will detail the origins of sustainability by illustrating some of the pioneers from multiple nations.  With our present state in sustainable management of maritime heritage harkened by Jameson and Scott-Ireton, “As archaeologists and cultural resource managers, we endeavor to develop more holistic interpretations in which values of sustainable environment and heritage are inextricably linked.  We have recognized that multidisciplinary and inclusive approaches are the most effective (Jameson and Scott-Ireton 2007, 1).”  The past of our discipline is full of the hardships of people who struggled to protect their local heritage and it would be from humble origins that the collective empathetic ethos would develop and how they creatively helped pass legislation and found national funding for their projects often without national or regional funding sources.   It must be explained to the reader that these pioneers have the obligation of sustaining the systems they established while supporting new techniques and supporting the enthusiasm of the next generation; a tall order for any discipline. 

The Netherlands:

            It is only fitting that we begin this dialogue on the origins of sustainable management of submerged cultural heritage in the country which has records the first professional archaeologist.  In 1818 Caspar Jacob Christian Reuvens began his tenure at Leiden University (Willems et al. 1997, 35).  It has a strong national empathy for the sea, but until five decades ago this was largely not expressed in the way it legally protected its maritime cultural heritage (Dromgoole 2006, 161-165).  The Netherlands has a long tradition of sea trade and exploration, but despite this the work done in the Netherlands up until the 1960’s was largely framed around commercial expansion of ports and polders or the purvey of antiquarian dealers of salvaged goods (Willems et al. 1997, 38-39). Exceptions like the excavation of the Utrecht Boat while excavated and recorded with best intentions failed due to a lack of proper description and the misidentification of the find from a historical perspective (Willems et al. 1997, 40).  However, some very good recording took place, but as a whole was the exception to the rule (Willems et al. 1997, 37).

Figure 1.  Even though the Netherlands is a seafaring nation 19^th century recording of submerged cultural material is rare.  This example is one of the best recorded finds a logboat recovered at Nijeveen in 1870 (Willems et al. 1997, 37).

This is very similar to the experience with maritime archaeology in North America during the first half of the 20^th century.  Ivor Noel-Hume noted or rather lamented the loss of much cultural data in the U.S. due to the commercial aspect of salvage and maritime heritage through out his life and eloquently demonstrates it in his work All the Best Rubbish when he discusses the commercial salvage of material from the Yorktown Fleet of 1781 (1974, 81).  Because maritime heritage, whether it be shipwrecks or submerged settlements are beyond the reach on the normal person, they are therefore hard to argue to protect.  Such comments are the lament of Jameson and Scott-Ireton in their edited work on public interpretation by the worlds submerged cultural heritage (2007).  This was no exception in the Netherlands, until the post war expansion of port infrastructure and the draining of polders brought the population of the Netherlands face to face with their lost and newly found maritime heritage.  The phenomenal preservation by geologic processes of many sites in the Netherlands as well as the previously mentioned expansion is the main reason why the protection of maritime heritage started early in this country (Willems et al. 1997, 40-41).

            While in many cases this good preservation which spurred many to preserve maritime heritage in the Netherlands had its benefits, many problems where created by this.  The locus of “value” in the Netherlands early on was on the distant past through the middle ages with little interest in the Renaissance and later periods.  Large objects like ships where not preserved or recorded in their entirety and much information was lost during the early to mid 20^th century.  Museums collected objects which could be easily displayed and well preserved, while many cultural remains were allowed to fall through the cracks.  A good example of this Dutch museological phenomenon can be seen in the treatment of the artifacts from Nova Zembla.  In 1596 Willem Barentsz reached Nova Zembla but had to abort his attempt to find a passage to India, starving and without hope of direct rescue they abandoned their shelter in the spring of 1597 to reach the Kola Peninsula and rescue with return to the Netherlands.  The expedition lost more than just their belongings which were recovered by seal hunters in 1871, but the life of their brave leader Barentsz who died while examining navigational charts on the journey to the Russian mainland.  This collection of artifacts became a Victorian fascination to many upon their return, but they were never properly drawn or recorded until the late 1990’s by the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam (J. Bratt et al. 1998). 

            This is not inclusive of the Netherlands alone.  Items of a National import are often the first to gather to national museums and preserved for future generations, especially if they are exceptional or pretty examples (Clack and Brittain 2007, 114-117).  It is a problem all heritage managers struggle with today and goes back to how and what we value.  It has great impacts on how and what we will preserve for future generations.  Throughout the 1950’s and through the 1960’s in the Netherlands ship finds largely where poorly recorded and preserved with emphasis being placed on the preservation of objects which would fill museum collections.  This did not change with the passing of the 1961 Monument s Act in the Netherlands (Willems et al. 1997, 43).  In the end it was a group of little people (not dwarves) but rather local interest over the poor handling and storage of material in harbor expansion projects which spurred on what would become volunteer and activist preservation at a local level in the Netherlands (Willems et al. 1997, 44-45).  This would in turn lead to the paradigm of research in the Netherlands to shift from the extraction of materials for museums and or cursory reports to the protection of important sites in situ for future research as a burgeoning sense of responsibility for material culture spread in the Dutch archeological cadre during the 1960’s and 1970’s. 

“A better understanding of the effects of antiquarianist treasure hunting on heritage management as a whole has been translated into rigid ethical codes.  Heritage management entered a stage in which wholesale rescue excavations in the polders were temporised by frugally setting aside important shipfind sites through physical protection and giving more attention to adequate research.  The original project approach was thereby converted to a long-term perspective (Willems et al. 1997, 46). 

This was the beginnings of the sustainable policies now in place in the Netherlands.

            Even with the advent of in-situ preservation in the Netherlands some expansion projects strain the local funding agencies as well as volunteer work to the point where a new shift has occurred towards mitigation.  Adams et al. in their work on Dredgers and Archaeology eloquently lay out a framework in which heritage management can work with larger commercial and government projects which damage or destroy the cultural heritage in their wake to produce some useful data.  The argument goes that finds which are more common can be recorded and published before they are destroyed to the best of the ability of those available.  An example from the work at the Slufter site can be seen in Figure 2.  This does not mean that this should be standard practice and throughout this work some sites were designated protected areas and left undisturbed with only cursory mention to location and state of preservation in-situ (Prott et al. 2000, 302-305).  The presence of competent maritime activists both professional and vocational in the case of the Slufter project helped break the deadlock to preserve the sites in the Slufter in the Netherlands.  Funding was finally provided by Ministry of Welfare and other organizations to support this documentation.

If it is convincingly probable that important archaeological values are at stake a serious effort should be made to record what will be lost.  To this end the development of a line of action indicating how and according to what priorities archaeological information and remains will be handled can be a considerable help in planning.  Budgetary consequences are divisible in a fixed and variable part.  The first is the minimal requirement for general documentation and- if necessary- on-site presence of archaeological staff (Adams et al. 1990, 153).

Mitigation at its core as part of the techniques employed in the Netherlands has at its heart sustainability as it requires planning, preferential choices.  It goes beyond rescue interventions but now looks into the sustainable management of the 435+ wrecksites uncovered in the polders and countless other sites.  It covers the planning for future management but also preservational issues.  It delves into the curation of the Dutch heritage and gives lessons to all maritime historians seeking inspiration.  “In development plans it seeks to include inspired archaeology.  This requires scientific curiosity and explicit priorities then and there.  Mitigation is certainly not about the dismal reduction of archaeology to standardized recording (Prott et al. 2000, 305).  In the Dutch case this has taken much innovation, but its reliance upon people who are “inspired” by their cultural heritage lends itself to a willful hopeful sustainability of their cultural heritage in their home waters and abroad. 

Figure 2.  An example of the type of data that can be recovered by proper mitigation.  These are some of the small finds recorded during the dredging of the Slufter as a waste disposal site in the Netherlands (Adams et al. 1990, 97).

United Kingdom:

            The United Kingdom is an island nation whose maritime history spans thousands of years.  In this regard it is similar to the Netherlands.  It’s maritime heritage is also under threat from development by industry (Dromgoole 2006, 314).  This has led to a fairly top down administrative approach to how wrecks are curated.  This has not always been the case, if we are to understand the sustainability of maritime heritage in the UK then we need to go back to the first professional recording of an archaeological site in this country.  This is nearly as far back as the work of Caspar Jacob Christian Reuvens in Leiden, for in 1822 the wreck of a 16^th century wreck was exposed in the River Rother (Figure 3).  Unlike many other finds of before in the 18^th century as well as finds in the 19^th century this wreck was professionally surveyed by a maritime architect (Marsden 1997, 15-17).  This is also the oldest known excavation which records in the finds a vial for an hourglass, but that is of course a tangent that relates to the adherence to the antiquarian love of objects rather than research into their historical function or social use.  For the most part throughout the 19^th century through the early to mid 20^th century the values applied to recovered maritime heritage where largely the same as those in the Netherlands, antiquary in nature and focused upon the recovery of objects of national or art value for museums (Marsden 1997, 16-20).

Figure 3.  Part of the 1822 recording of a 16^th century wreck in the Rother River during clearage operations (Marsden 1997, 16).

            The situation can be summed up by the fact that in 1953 after a massive storm hit the coast of Kent hundreds of late 17^th and early 18^th century wine bottles refilled with beer, for which the local inhabitants collected and put in their curio cabinets (Noel-Hume 1974, 75-77).  English law in the period of the 19^th century through the passing of the 1973 Protection of Wrecks Act was dominated by the salvage laws and the law of the sea.  However, whereas activist and volunteer engagement in the Netherlands had been sporadic and local by 1981 the UK had a powerful force in the formation of the Nautical Archaeology Society which took over publication of the International journal of Nautical Archaeology and became government funded in 1991 (Marsden 1997, 20).  In the wake of the ICOMOS charter the UK is on the verge of becoming one of the few countries to be able to rightly claim a measure of sustainability in regards to its submerged cultural heritage largely by the integration of vocational and professionals in many professions.  It must be noted that this was not always the case and a few examples are worth mentioning to stress the issues that the UK has faced over the last sixty years since the end of the Second World War.

            In 1910 when it was decided that a new County Hall should be built on the south bank of the River Thames a boat from the Roman period was exposed by the workmen.  The wreck was excavated and recorded due to its antiquity as there was a fashion in England during this period all the way through the present time towards Roman influence in the UK.  However, while the boat was shown with much ado by the press and public alike the director of the London Museum wrote in 1912 two years after its discovery and one year after its removal to the museum, “We have now finished with the Roman boat.  Another is not likely to be found, we will take good care of that.  This echoes the sentiments of all the officials of the London County Council who have been bothered with this white elephant (Marsden 1994, 109)”.  This however, is a problem harkened by all museums today.  “Museums have notoriously limited budgets; far from engaging in rescue excavation or field projects, many of them have enough difficulty in conserving and displaying their existing collections (Knell 2004, 180).  The true state of the preservation was not known until it was decided to move it by dismantling it and then move it to permanent storage in 1978 (Marsden 1994, 109). 

            This is in contrast to the work carried out in the Netherlands.  As has been previously shown, while excavations or uncovering of cultural material there was not always recorded in full, cursory reports by staff of local or national authorities with a level of competence were (usually) employed (Willems et al. 1997, 44-46).  The UK has a long tradition of the vocational archaeologist.  They also have a long tradition of varying degrees of recording finds (Knell 2004, 184).  The prohibitory cost of excavation, conservation, and preservation of materials from submerged sites has often left administrators of cultural heritage reluctant to even protect known sites in the UK.  The New Guy’s House boat which has been dated to the second century A.D. was uncovered during construction.  Very little was done to record this site, but once recognized and dated their was an attempt to protect it through the Department of the Environment but the site was classified as a chattel or moveable object and therefore not acceptable under the current legislation of the early 1960’s.  This site was never re-excavated for further documentation and was not protected until a large group of professionals and vocationals fought for its preservation leading it to be a protected monument on the 22^nd of June 1983 (Marsden 1994, 97).  This only was possible after the proper wording was incorporated into the 1979 Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Areas Act by people vested in these sites protection (Marsden 1997, 20).

            It was equally hard to publish the findings from submerged martitime culture in the UK until the past decade.  While previous media engagement as well as the 16 hour live coverage of the warship Mary Rose is largely responsible for the continued public support of this project maritime archaeology in general often does not have the visual appeal to be sustainable or have a place in mainstream media (Clack and Brittain 2007, 121).  The Blackfriars #3 ship which has been dated to circa 1400 A.D.was originally excavated in 1970 did not have a formal examination and publication until funding became available in 1991 when English Heritage and the Museum of London provided funding to do so.  Much information was lost due the damage of the material in transport as well as its storage (Marsden 1994, 57-59).  The use of commercial companies for heritage management as well as the funding of organizations like the Nautical Archaeology Society founded in 1981 has continued to leave the UK with a disparate standard internally.  While many laws and infrastructures exist in the UK the formation of a sustainable paradigm to, “enable ‘joined-up’ up government” has been slow to fruition (Dromgoole 2006, 347). 

            While the loss of data in the UK as a result of this schism in the past may appear to the world as a crime against out collected cultural sensibilities; as stated before in the example of the centrally controlled and directed work in the Netherlands some information was also lost.  The governmental structure of heritage management in the UK is taxed, especially with the management of offshore developments.  What has ended up happening is that private companies such as Wessex Archaeology (Figure 4), have been contracted by English Heritage to fill the gap (Newell and Garner 2006, 82-122).  At the same time, English Heritage has wisely chosen to develop an Archaeological Diving Unit which has in the past worked directly with the Nautical Archaeology Society to train vocationals to preserve and appreciate their local heritage (Marsden 1997, 20-21).  Many of these vocationals will hopefully move on to permanent positions, but due to the fact that, “…advising on post excavation writing up and publication of underwater sites is not part of its responsibility.”,  the vocational in the UK in regards to the Diving Unit of English Heritage still has many hurtles before he or she can become a proper steward and take academic ownership of any cultural heritage (Marsden 1997, 19-20).  Both the commercial and vocational agents in the UK are therefore engaged which enables English Heritage to better manage in a sustainable fashion its submerged maritime cultural heritage. 

Figure 4.  Pratt & Whitney radial engine from a WWII American Boeing B-17 flying fotress beting recorded by Wessex Archaeology at the request of English Heritage and other corporations (Newell and Garner 2006, 93).

           

United States of America:

            While the United States of America as a political entity is younger than the two social constitutional monarchies mentioned before, it has a cultural heritage possibly even more varied than both combined stretching back at least 10,000 years.  The management of submerged cultural heritage in the US is very different from the two countries previously mentioned, but this has more to do with the composition of our governmental structure than in a disparate set of material culture or moral values.  As is the case with the Netherlands and the UK submerged material culture is threatened from economic development, sport divers, and commercial salvage operations (Dromgoole 2006, 351-356).  Because of the capitalist and entrepreneurial nature of the American society there was never an original academic philosophy in regards to submerged cultural heritage in the US.  From the formation of our country in 1787 by the adoption of a formal constitution the US has largely viewed lost articles from the past in its waters as things to be salvaged.  This mentality can be viewed by the clearing of the Delaware River in 1948 in which an intact colonial cargo vessel was discovered, salvaged, and destroyed without regard to the loss of cultural information (Noel-Hume 1974, 73-74).  As stated, “…the remains of boats, barrels, wooden boxes, clothing, leather goods, and countless other artifacts of earlier times are smashed, scooped up in the jaws of mechanical excavators, and dumped where no one will ever find them (Noel-Hume 1974, 73).

Figure 5.  Mid to late 18^th century glass wine bottles being recovered from wrecks thought to be from the Battle of Yorktown by helmet divers in the 1930’s (Noel-Hume 1974, 81).

            It would be the double-edged sword of sport divers that would spur on the first attempts of sustainable preservation of submerged cultural heritage in the US.  “In 1960-61, sport divers succeeded in having two sites in Lake Champlain added to the list of Historic Landmarks: the Revolutionary War ships sunk at Valcour Bay and the British warships of the War of 1812 sunk at Plattsburg Bay (Prott et al. 2000, 355).  However, at the same time, irreparable damage was being done to sites by not so conscientious divers across the US and the Caribbean.  This is in sharp contrast to the salvage and loss of a warship which sank in 1757 during the Seven Year’s War in Lake George.  This vessel was completely destroyed by being cut up for souvenirs in 1903 (Jameson and Scott-Ireton 2007, 114).  This would be a story told over and over again in both Lake George and Lake Champlain to the lament of the present archaeological and historical community.  Some light did come from a vocational during the end of this period in Lake George.  Terry Crandall, a vocational historian did scuba searches under a permit from the State of New York in 1963-64 which be the historic baseline for all future research in the area (Jameson and Scott-Ireton 2007, 115).

            Lake George and Lake Champlain were not isolates in this continuing struggle to find a sustainable balance between commercial antiquarianism, historical fanaticism, and benign neglect.  This story played its part all over the US and the Caribbean until the passing of The Abandoned Shipwrecks Act of 1987 (Prott et al. 2000, 354-355).  Due to the nature of the government of the world’s oldest unchanged constitutional system even with the passing of this law the federal beaurocracy and its relationship to state rights has made it almost impossible to declare an abandoned wreck in practice protected without both a unilateral agreement between a state preservation agency or a vested non-governmental organization and the federal authorities (Jameson and Scott-Ireton 2007, 85-180).  Projects that have managed to succeed in this fashion often take advantage of a certain amount of historical fanaticism.  While the wrecks of the USS Monitor receive dedicated NOAA Marine Sanctuary status through the National Parks and Historic Register as well as having upper Federal protection, wrecks of older date or lacking a “National” character are often left forgotten and exposed. 

            However, since the passage of The Abandoned Shipwrecks Act of 1987 the amount of general salvage has continued to go down as states now have first right of refusal to applications.  The 1990’s through the early 2000’s is now seen by many in the US as being our high water mark when it comes to sustainable management of submerged cultural heritage (Prott et al. 2000, 357-359).  While work on saving submerged cultural heritage of “national” character still continues local governments in the form of state agencies as well as local non-government organizations began to take proper ownership of their submerged cultural heritage. Partly this was due to the import of ideas and personnel from outside such as the influence and implementation of the Nautical Archaeology Society in the US starting in the late 1980’s (Jameson and Scott-Ireton 2007, 85-180). 

A shining example of the use of technical and ethical personnel from abroad can be seen in the recovery, excavation, and preservation of the American Civil War submarine H. L. Hunley (1864) of which I was lucky enough to have been a brief part of.

“This included the prior obtaining of finance, social and political backing, expert staff, a large conservation facility and an existing and well-regarded exhibition venue in Charleston, South Carolina.  The convening of an international forum designed to air the many conservation, ethical, and archaeological issues, with a view to their satisfactory resolution well before the excavation and lift occurred, was another step toward the establishment of best practice…(Mardikian 2004, 137).

This is however, the case in which material of “national” character is the focus of preservation and it does not apply to most wrecks in the US.  It is also a case where negotiation between ownership was necessary as it is technically a war grave and a memorandum of agreement had to be formulated between the Federal government and the State of South Carolina (Jameson and Scott-Ireton 2007, 196).

            Because of the separated nature of local governments in the US it will be work like that of Gordon Watts and Kurt Knoerl with providing a common link through the online Museum of Underwater Archaeology that may provide the answer for the future of sustainable engagement of the public and the proper sharing of information between parties (Jameson and Scott-Ireton 2007, 223-239).  Federal organizations like NOAA and the National Parks Service in the US have shared links and pages with the Museum of Underwater Archaeology over the past ten years and this has lead to local people as well as Americans in general to better appreciate the varied submerged cultural heritage within the US and abroad (Jameson and Scott-Ireton 2007, 223-239).  This “web” of support to all those in the US who love ships and the sea has ushered in a new era of dialogue and discourse which has led to better practice as well as help those people with inspiration find others to work with (Jameson and Scott-Ireton 2007, 223-239).

Figure 6.  NOAA Monitor Marine Sanctuary page linked to Kurt Knoerl’s Museum of Underwater Archaeology webpage.  This has become an interactive way to share knowledge with the public as well as professionals (Jameson and Scott-Ireton 2007, 228).

           

Conclusion:

            It is no coincidence that I decided to end my central portion of this text with how the US has decided to seek help at a national level as well as internationally for its problems relating to submerged or underwater cultural heritage.  It is part of the growth of what I mentioned in the introduction. The urgency in recording known sites and protecting them has become a quandary when question naturally turns to funding and supportive structures.  Regardless if you think that archaeology and historic preservation is taxes well spent as many archaeologists say, the sustainability of the most expensive branch of archaeology is a subject which is being addressed no longer as isolated cases make it necessary, but as prehistoric cultures and moveable cultural heritage in the way of ships, plane, and submerge prehistory are being examined in nations beyond their origin.  The global empathy which is at the heart of the ICOMOS charter has its beginnings in previous agreements between governments.  The agreement between the US and France over the CSS Alabama made cooperation and expertise in the way of French personnel to assist in the conservation of the H. L. Hunley a few years after.  The Dutch VOC wrecks in Australia prompted cooperation and heritage agreements between these countries and further trade in expertise. 

            The Dutch story cited in this text shows the peril of having only a single academic cadre to care for underwater cultural heritage.  While on the same token they have given us the framework to use for mitigation in our ever expanding society.  Mitigation is certainly not about the dismal reduction of archaeology to standardized recording (Prott et al. 2000, 305).  In the Dutch case this has taken much innovation, but its reliance upon people who are “inspired” by their cultural heritage lends itself to a willful hopeful sustainability of their cultural heritage in their home waters and abroad.  In the case of the UK what has ended up happening is that private companies such as Wessex Archaeology have been contracted by English Heritage to fill the gap (Newell and Garner 2006, 82-122).  At the same time, English Heritage has wisely chosen to develop an Archaeological Diving Unit which has in the past worked directly with the Nautical Archaeology Society to train vocationals to preserve and appreciate their local heritage (Marsden 1997, 20-21).  Many of these vocationals will hopefully move on to permanent positions, but due to the fact that, “…advising on post excavation writing up and publication of underwater sites is not part of its responsibility.”,  the vocational in the UK in regards to the Diving Unit of English Heritage still has many hurtles before he or she can become a proper steward and take academic ownership of any cultural heritage (Marsden 1997, 19-20).  Both the commercial and vocational agents in the UK are therefore engaged which enables English Heritage to better manage in a sustainable fashion its submerged maritime cultural heritage.

            It would be the double-edged sword of sport divers that would spur on the first attempts of sustainable preservation of submerged cultural heritage in the US.  “In 1960-61, sport divers succeeded in having two sites in Lake Champlain added to the list of Historic Landmarks: the Revolutionary War ships sunk at Valcour Bay and the British warships of the War of 1812 sunk at Plattsburg Bay (Prott et al. 2000, 355).  This is in sharp contrast to the salvage and loss of a warship which sank in 1757 during the Seven Year’s War in Lake George.  This vessel was completely destroyed by being cut up for souvenirs in 1903 (Jameson and Scott-Ireton 2007, 114).  This story played its part all over the US and the Caribbean until the passing of The Abandoned Shipwrecks Act of 1987 (Prott et al. 2000, 354-355).  Due to the nature of the government of the world’s oldest unchanged constitutional system even with the passing of this law the federal beaurocracy and its relationship to state rights has made it almost impossible to declare an abandoned wreck in practice protected without both a unilateral agreement between a state preservation agency or a vested non-governmental organization and the federal authorities (Jameson and Scott-Ireton 2007, 85-180).  Because of the separated nature of local governments in the US it will be work like that of Gordon Watts and Kurt Knoerl with providing a common link through the online Museum of Underwater Archaeology that may provide the answer for the future of sustainable engagement of the public and the proper sharing of information between parties in the US (Jameson and Scott-Ireton 2007, 223-239). 

Regardless of country, governmental system, or the presence or absence of a national budget or and agenda to underwater cultural heritage funding and sustainability always come down to how we value our collective cultural heritage.  Values relate to tangibles and intangibles that define what is important to people.  In all societies a sense of well-being is associated with the need to connect with and appreciate heritage values.  In heritage management, we commonly articulate ‘values” as attributes given to sites, objects, and resources, and associated intellectual and emotional connections that make them important and define their significance for a person, group, or community (Jameson and Scott-Ireton 2007, 1). While the ICOMOS Charter may be one of the first internationally empathetic ways of dealing with our collective cultural heritage in the world’s oceans, seas, and rivers, the charter is the end result of many decades of local activists’ endeavors to protect their regional and national cultural heritage.  The spread of best practice as emphasized in the ICOMOS Charter around the world is commendable, but to hold all to the same standard is ludicrous when many nations do not have the national budget or moral valuation of certain cultural items.  Therefore to reach a sustainable maritime archaeology, “We cannot legislate values.  We can, however, legislate rules which direct behavior.  Environmental and archaeological resources exist and are affected at the most local level-an individual decides to dig a hole or not dig a hole.  Thus, which sites are saved by preservation, or their stories through excavation, are decisions which are best made at the state level where the costs and benefits are most measureable (Prott et al. 2000, 360).

References

J. Adams; A. F. L. van Holk; and Th. J. Maarleveld.  Dredgers and Archaeology, Shipfinds from Slufter.  Archaeologie onder water, 2^e onderzoeksrapport Ministrie van Welzijn, Volksgezondheid en Cultuur, Alphen aan den Rijn 1990.

T. Clack and Brittain, M.  Archaeology and the Media. Left Coast Press, Walnut Creek, California, 2007.

Dromgoole, S. The Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage, National Perspectives in Light of the Unesco Convention 2001.  Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, Leiden/Boston 2006.

Elia, R. J. US protection of  underwater cultural heritage beyond the territorial sea: problems and prospects.  The International Journal of Nautical Archaeology (1999) 28.2: 145-153.

Fletcher-Tomenius, P.; and Williams, M. The draft UNESCO/DOALOS Convention on the protection of underwater cultural heritage and conflict with the European Convention on Human Rights. The International Journal of Nautical Archaeology (2000) 29.1: 43-56.

Hume, I. N.  All the Best Rubbish, being an antiquary’s accounts of the pleasures and perils of studying and collecting everyday objects from the past.  Harper and Row Publishers, New York, 1974.

International Council on Monuments and Sites.  International charter on the protection and management of underwater cultural heritage.  The International Journal of Nautical Archaeology (1998) 27.3: 183-187.

Jameson, J. H. Jr.; Scott-Ireton, D. A. EDS.  Out of the Blue, Public Interpretation of Maritime Cultural Resources.  Springer, 2007.

Knell, S. J. EDS.  Museums and the Future of Collecting, Second Edition. Ashgate, 2004.

Mardikian, P.  Conservation and Management Strategies Applied to Post-Recovery Analysis of the American Civil War Submarine H. L. Hunley (1864). The International Journal of Nautical Archaeology (2004) 33.1: 137-148.

Marsden, P.  Ships of the Port of London, First to Eleventh Centuries A.D. English Heritage Archaeological Report 3, London 1994.

Marsden, P.  Ships of the Port of London, Twelfth to Seventeenth Centuries A.D. English Heritage Archaeological Report 5, London 1996.

Marsden, P.  Ships and Shipwrecks.  English Heritage, London 1997.

McManamon, F. P.; Stout, A.; Barnes, J. A.; EDS.  Managing Archaeological Resources; Global Context, National Programs, Local Actions.  Left Coast Press, Walnut Creek, California, 2008.

Newell, R. C.; and Garner, D. J. EDS. Marine aggregate extraction, helping to determine good practice.  Healey’s Printers Limited, 2007.

Prott, L. V.; Planche, E.; Roca-Hachem, R. EDS. Background Materials on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage.  Ministere de la Culture et de la Communication (France) 2000.

Tomalin, D. J. Excavation versus sustainability in situ: a conclusion on 25 years of archaeological investigations at Goose Rock, a designated historic wreck-site at the Needles, Isle of Wight, England, The International Journal of Nautical Archaeology (2000) 29.1: 3-42.

Walsh, K. The Representation of the Past, Museums and heritage in the post-modern world.  Routledge, London and New York, 1992.

Willems, W. J. H.; Kars, H.; Hallewas, D. P. EDS.  Archaeological Heritage Management in the Netherlands, Fifty Years State Service for Archaeological Investigations.  Van Gorcum, 1997.

Post St. Patrick Day Post...

As a tribute to St. Patrick and perhaps St. Brendan’s journey I have decided to finish my discussion on a nautical piece normally thought only as a crude time keeper for the Dutchmans, English, or chip log.  As mentioned in a previous blog post I said I would go into more detail about how sandglasses are made if only for the purpose of showing the changing society in northern Europe in regards to technological and social change.  The first hourglasses were most likely made in the Mediterranean portion of Italy or France during the 13^th century, where Roman period glass production continued after this namesakes fall.  The Roman Empire in its last days had become a God fearing republic and it would be this vestige of the imperial administration which would preserve many texts and technologies from oblivion.   While technology and literature where preserved in the case of the humble sandglass the purpose of this invention and its originator are now lost to history. 

            The key to making a sandglass like those used onboard ships for navigation or even simple timekeeping in regards to religious services onboard ships would be the manufacture of the glass vials or ampoules which contain the glass which the sand falls through.  Glass was used in the near east for thousands of years as a form of currency and beads and trade discs are common in the archaeological record.  It was the Romans from which we know the most and assume our current predecessor’s knowledge comes from.  There appear to be three types of vials, globes or ampoules.  The first type is distinctly pear shaped and seems to be favored by the Low Countries and some of the northern German states.  This form of vial has a low push up and is characterized as stated before by a pear shaped body form tapering to a mouth which has been shaped expanding the neck and squaring it on a marver.  Another form is more globular and appears to be more common to the countries of the southern German states and the Mediterranean which either can have a low or a high push up.  The third and final form which I have observed is the form most common in late Renaissance and early modern church sandglasses which almost always have a conical form with a high push up.

            Regardless of form the technology to produce these vials, globes, or ampoules is the same.  The Romans as far as we know were the first to produce large glass containers, although this technology most likely has earlier precedents.  The glass is melted until it has no crystal structure and is picked up from the furnace on a blowing rod made of metal, in most cases iron, but early pieces could have been bronze.  The glass is then spun and blown into a vial until it is the proper size and the glass blower uses a set of tools called jacks to manipulate the shape of the piece.  If straight sides or a consistent diameter are required the piece is then rolled on a metal marver as stated previously.  The piece is then transferred to a pontil rod which is another blowing rod with less glass on it which is attached to the base of the vial so that the neck can be cut, reheated in the furnace and then reshaped.  This process requires considerable training and patience but is only the beginning of the early technology of making a sandglass!

Next week I’ll talk about how sand wasn’t necessarily sand and how early on the concepts of friction as it relates to the angle of repose were discovered and solved to make these pieces work more reliably!  St. Patrick and St. Brendan don't seem quite as primitive to me now….

Very important link!

A brown bag presentation as a generic demonstration why you should leave things in-situ unless you plan on honoring the ICOMOS promise to preserve all material.

here it is...

http://www.vimeo.com/16130699