Living Museums in the Sea Model: Protecting Underwater Cultural Heritage while Facilitating Connection to Local Communities

Summary

This is a poster submission presented at the 2023 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

The Living Museums in the Sea model was created to be a holistic approach to resource management, protecting underwater cultural resources and their associated environments. This system promotes economic benefits to the local community and knowledge of local history. Managing recovered artifacts is becoming more challenging for archaeologists with the ongoing curation crisis. This model emphasizes leaving artifacts in situ, creating a sustainable solution, and protecting the underwater cultural resources from salvage, degradation due to lack of funds for conservation, and inaccessibility. In cases where a site has previously been salvaged, the Living Museums in the Sea model utilizes recovered artifacts for outreach and education. Cultural resources are intrinsically integrated with the biological environment, making Living Museums a key management strategy that protects the ecosystems associated with these shipwreck sites.  

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for Historical Archaeology 2023   •
• 2023 SHA Poster Submissions

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Nicole Haddow