The Defensive Conformation of the Maritime Space in the Bay of Cartagena de Indias (Colombia) during the Eighteenth Century

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Underwater and Coastal Archaeology in Latin America" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Cartagena de Indias’ geostrategic importance for the European colonial powers in the eighteenth century led to the creation of defense infrastructures and the development of practices to strengthen and protect the coastal territory. All the infrastructures and cultural practices inherent to the “militarization” of this territory constitute today a homogeneous cultural phenomenon interpreted as a Maritime Cultural Landscape of War and Defense, or as a Fortified Landscape. The experiences of the continuous attacks, like the English siege in 1741, contributed to the revision and evolution of the strategies and tactics of defense in the Bay of Cartagena de Indias and the improvement of the military devices for nautical control. The defense system’s constitution, the war events, and the battles’ results left archaeological evidence located on land, on the coast, and underwater. In this sense, the main goal of this paper is to expose the defensive conformation of the maritime space in the Bay of Cartagena de Indias (Colombia) during the eighteenth century. This, through the discussion of the archaeological investigations carried out in the different inland, intertidal, and submerged contexts of the region.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)   •
• Underwater and Coastal Archaeology in Latin America

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 39123.0