Theoretical and Practical Advances in Underwater Regional Survey

Summary

To contend with expensive and invasive ‘big dig’ excavations, archaeologists have trended towards using regional surveys to examine and interpret distribution patterns across a given area. Regional surveys offer an effective and efficient way of analyzing the long-term use and wide scale development of variably occupied spaces. With the introduction of Geographic Information Systems and other new technologies, archaeologists have been able to capitalize on the insights gained from statistical analyses, such as regression and predictive models, to further our understanding of pre-modern societies.

Underwater archaeology, however, has not enjoyed the range of theoretical and methodological developments that terrestrial archaeology has over the past 50 years. Until recently, conducting regional surveys underwater was too costly in both time and finances. In the past twenty years, though, archaeologists have begun to utilize oceanographic tools to inspect large expanses in both shallow and deep water, revealing a great deal of submerged cultural material. This project examines if, where, and how theories established to investigate land sites and regions could be applied to underwater environments, with particular focus on the Mediterranean, and offers a case study from Eratosthenes Seamount as a practical application.

SAA 2015 abstracts made available in tDAR courtesy of the Society for American Archaeology and Center for Digital Antiquity Collaborative Program to improve digital data in archaeology. If you are the author of this presentation you may upload your paper, poster, presentation, or associated data (up to 3 files/30MB) for free. Please visit http://www.tdar.org/SAA2015 for instructions and more information.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage