Setbacks and Solutions Within Archaeology

DOCUMENT Citation Only Eric Swanson.

Remote sensing in a marine environment has expanded quickly over the last decade, seeing the emergence of technology that was only dreamed of over a century ago (Verne 1870).  It is with the emergence and consistent operation of marine technology that we see innovative and dynamic use of sensors to discover methods that can help to explore and define the resources we discover and investigate.  Studies into the effect that the environment has on archaeological sites has been a particular focus...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Justine Benanty. Samuel M Cuellar.

New digital technologies have been slow to be adopted by the archaeological field. While archaeologists are encouraged to undertake public education and outreach, we haven't yet fully embraced the immersive visual & interactive online tools available to us. Traditional means of publishing no longer suffices as a strategy for long-term preservation of our field. While young professional archaeologists are attempting to bridge this gap by providing first hand visual data from the field, it isn't...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Brandi Carrier. Michael Heinz.

At SHA 2016, evidence was presented, and subsequently published, demonstrating that strong magnetic field perturbations resulting from Earth-directed solar events can adversely affect marine archaeological survey. Survey and observatory magnetometer data from mid-latitude regions confirmed the immediate onset of geomagnetic storms and the fast compression of the magnetopause, creating a short-duration, high amplitude spike in Earth’s magnetic field that appears similar to the signature of an...

DOCUMENT Full-Text Heather Walder. John Creese.

In summer of 2016, the authors investigated two northern Wisconsin sites with long legacies of regional recognition as key seventeenth-century interaction locales among Native American communities and French explorers, missionaries, and traders. These historic locations, known as the Fish Creek Village and Shore’s Landing Trading Post, are significant to descendant communities, including local Ojibwe peoples and Wendat diaspora groups. In addition, the locations are some of the first...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Nicholas C. Budsberg.

Disciplines across the social and physical sciences often encounter similar setbacks; however,  intradisciplinary solutions addressing these setbacks are rarely identical, or transimplementable. Issues such as where to locate funding, how to organizing and streamline access to knowledge, and how to garner public support for the discipline rather than shallow substitutes (e.g. archaeology over treasure hunting) are longstanding setbacks - ones that are not unique to our discipline, alone....

DOCUMENT Citation Only Daniel A Haddock.

Marine magnetometer surveys are incredibly useful for identifying buried cultural resources.  Magnetometers are extremely sensitive instruments that measure anomalies within Earth’s magnetic field.  Ferrous materials often associated with man-made objects create these anomalies that archaeologists can identify to potentially find historic and prehistoric sites.  Due to the potentially small size of the magnetic readings, any complications in the survey can mask or mislead the interpreter.  Much...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Hunter W Whitehead.

Underwater aviation resources in the Gulf of Mexico near Pensacola, Florida are numerous due to a longstanding presence of the U.S. Navy’s first Naval Air Station. Throughout the years, training aircraft were lost at sea during periods of both conflict and of peace. The F8F Bearcat, a carrier-based fighter aircraft, was introduced too late to participate in World War II, but was used at NAS Pensacola as a carrier qualification trainer. This paper presents steps taken to utilize and test...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jessica Glickman.

Managing the expectations of the public and the timeline in which many expect archaeology to happen is a challenge for every public archaeological organization. When you add the underwater component and restrictions related to maritime law, public perception and plausible reality often conflict. The raising of the CSS Pee Dee Canons serves as an example of mitigating multiple agencies as well as making underwater archaeology visible. This crossover also highlights many of the problems with...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Filipe Castro. Nicholas C. Budsberg.

The recent growth in volume and complexity of the illicit antiquities trade is documented, and links have been established between it and criminal activities, such as money laundering, extortion, drug and arms trading, terrorism, insurgency, and slavery. In 2011 Neil Brodie argued that "academic expertise is indispensable for the efficient functioning of the [illicit antiquities] trade," but the authors argue that a full ban on the study of unprovenanced artifacts is unacceptable from a...