Paper Ships on Digital Seas

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Paper / Report Submission (General Sessions)" , at the 2022 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

Ordinary ships such as merchant schooners—and most importantly the people involved in their lives—are often missing entirely from discussions and narratives of the 19th century. Their absence is a problem. Not just because it reveals an incompleteness in the record or a focus on specific tiers of society, which it does. But because of the potential of the ordinary to inform our understanding of the 19th century maritime world. A challenge faced by archaeologists and historians is that only a small number of such ships have been explored in any detail. It is clear archaeology has a lot to add to and challenge about our understanding of this period. Therefore, this presentation introduces new information through the material culture documentation of several hundred ships, in a way that will move beyond individual vessel-narratives to produce new knowledge about and ideas of seafaring and shipbuilding from this period.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SHA 2022 General Sessions   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2022

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology