Fish, Oyster, Whale: The Archaeology of Maritime Traditions

This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "Fish, Oyster, Whale: The Archaeology of Maritime Traditions," at the 2023 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

The ways people use the sea and the structures that aid or inhibit the sea’s use are historically significant. The authors in this symposium examine the material manifestations of maritime cultural traditions -- fishing, oystering, whaling, and even mining -- in England,Scotland, Canada, the Caribbean, and the United States. Faunal remains, shoreside buildings, fishing gear, archival documents, and oral histories provide information about the economic, social, and subsistence strategies of seafaring people and the ways they resisted structures of oppression, established foodways traditions, and built transportation corridors to make the products of the sea more available. The authors also consider the heritagization of these places as they are interpreted and/or adapted for reuse, and the ways the fishermen, oystermen, and whalers are remembered and mythologized.