SSEAS of Change: Sport Divers, Heritage Monitoring, and the Future of Submerged Resources Management

Summary

The growth and sustained popularity of scuba diving has resulted in increased visitation to historic shipwrecks and other submerged heritage sites. In Florida, one of the top diving destinations in the world, archaeologists and resources managers are concerned with the ongoing preservation of the state’s underwater cultural heritage, both as heritage tourism attractions and as tangible parts of our common maritime heritage. The Submerged Sites Education & Archaeological Stewardship, or SSEAS, workshop was developed by the Florida Public Archaeology Network to train sport divers in non-disturbance recording techniques in order to engage divers in preservation ethics and methods, instilling a preservation mindset while developing teams of trained assistants for state managers. After several years of workshops, FPAN is using lessons learned and new strategies to adapt the SSEAS curriculum to the changing needs of both managers and divers, including advanced monitoring of sites, in situ preservation technology, and citizen science initiatives.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 18714