Underwater Archaeology: Spade-Free Efforts toward Raising Our Sunken Past

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2025: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Underwater archaeology sits at a critical juncture between spade and spade-free archaeology. While many underwater archaeological projects have utilized traditional excavation methods to illuminate our sunken history, recent efforts have turned toward spare-free, in situ and/or virtual reality methodologies to investigate these sites, work toward their preservation, and expand our archaeological knowledge. This paper explores the intricacies of in situ underwater archaeological methods across diverse resources, efforts in interdisciplinary research of underwater sites, and current issues within the field of spade-free underwater archaeology. It will outline case studies in the Mallows Bay-Potomac River, Wisconsin Shipwreck Coast, and Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuaries in the United States.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 90th Annual Meeting, Denver, CO (2025)   •
• SAA 2025: Individual Abstracts

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 52964