"Spoiled Submerged Sites" or "Just Another  C-Filter"?  Accounting for Recent Human Impact in the Archaeological Analysis of BISC-2

Summary

BISC-2 represents a type of site that is all too familiar to maritime archaeologists: one subject to extensive recent post-deposition disturbance as a result of different forms of destructive human intervention. Too often such sites are dismissed as too "spoiled" to provide reliable insight into the past. We suggest that while regrettable, such recent interventions should not lead us to dismiss such sites as archaeologically irrelevant. Instead they should be addressed through archaeological techniques that identify the effects of all forms of human behavior in the process of site transformation over time.  Techniques that should be brought to bear are comparable to those tapplied in analyzing the record of human activity on any archaeological site, involving challenges similar to those confronted in theory and practice in other archaeological contexts.  Our analysis juxtaposes our recent  archaeological documentation of BISc-2 with an ongoing review of the known  human intervention on this site.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Trade at The Border of Colonial Empires in late 18th Century North America: Historical, Methodological and Theoretical Insights from the Archeological Study of the "English China" (BISC-2) Shipwreck Site   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2013

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Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 686