Mapping The Maritime Frontier: The Development Of Aids To Navigation, Risk Mitigation And The Maritime Frontier Of The Florida Keys.

Summary

The physical landscape of the Florida Keys and its associated reef tract has forced a series of unique adaptations to manage the risk of utilizing the area. The study of human adaptation and modification of the area through the progress of systematic survey, the establishment of an Aids to Navigation (ATON) network, and the further development of maritime infrastructure could be interpreted as a means to measure human exploration and utilization of the maritime frontier. Furthermore, it represents a distinctive regional pattern that forms one of "the microcosms of American history," in which human assessment of risk in the marine environment is exemplified. Utilizing maritime cultural landscape approaches specifically focusing on both the cognitive and physical landscape, researchers are better equipped to identify and study maritime cultural landscapes. This new information presents data that would have otherwise been impossible to decipher using more traditional historical, archaeological, or ethnographic approaches.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for Historical Archaeology 2017   •
• South Florida Shipwreck Research and Advancing Frontiers

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Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 543