Shipwrecks and the Public: Getting People Engaged with their Maritime History

This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "Shipwrecks and the Public: Getting People Engaged with their Maritime History," at the 2019 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

Due to the inherent difficulties of public access to submerged archaeological sites, an effective public outreach strategy is one of the primary responsibilities of nautical archaeologists. A series of recent shipwreck archaeology projects in North America are linked by similar efforts of public involvement. These projects studied 18th- and 19th- century shipwrecks in the public eye by enthusiastically engaging the local public in project details. Incorporating the public can be as simple as giving public presentations or as complicated as including local divers in field schools or diving projects. One of the more challenging aspects of public outreach is balancing public involvement with adequate data accumulation. The projects in this session will discuss the creative ways they incorporated the public while ensuring project goals continued to be met.