Archeaology

This paper considers four case studies related to late eighteenth and nineteenth century Royal Navy vessels and associated underwater cultural heritage material located within Australian jurisdiction. The first considers some of the material left on a reef-top in the Great Barrier Reef after HMB Endeavour ran aground in 1770. The second looks at the site of HMS Sirius (1790), the flagship of the First Fleet, which is located in shallow water off one of Australia’s territories – Norfolk Island. The third examines the archaeological investigations of the frigate HMS Pandora (1791), a site forever linked in the popular imagination to the mutiny on the Bounty. The final case study is one of future possibility which currently has no physical reality – the possibility of locating the remains of HMS Sappho (1858).

""Submerged cultural resource managers have a daunting task; balance the protection of the underwater cultural heritage without denying or unfairly restricting economic development of the coastal zone. Underwater archaeological resources such as historic shipwrecks and submerged prehistoric sites can and have been impacted by fi shing, farming, and energy development — both ‘traditional’ (i.e. hydrocarbon-based) and ‘renewable’ (i.e. wind, water, and thermal).

This journal article discusses the numerous stakeholders involved in the utilization of coastal and underwater resources, and how archaeological sites are mapped, managed, mitigated for and preserved within the pursuit of marine resources.""

Australia is the world's largest island and the only single nation to occupy a continent entirely surrounded by water. The sea and shipping have played an important part in Australian history in a variety of areas including exploration, settlement, immigration, trade, commercial industries, sport and recreation. In the past four centuries many thousands of ships have been wrecked in storms, on coastlines, in warfare, and in collisions around the Australia coastline.

Australia has nearly thirty years experience in the inventory of certain kinds of underwater and maritime cultural heritage. Although the shipwreck resource is relatively small (about 6500 wrecks) the length of coastline is enormous. Unfortunately Australian shipwreck legislation makes no attempt to cover other items of underwater cultural heritage such as aircrad=ft or indigenous sites.

"The coming into force of the 2001 UNESCO Convention marks the beginning of a process whereby it will become an important international instrument for the protection and management of the world’s fragile, finite and irreplaceable underwater cultural heritage. The meeting conducted some of the groundwork needed to establish multilateral working procedures for the Convention including the establishment of an Advisory Body. Unfortunately the Asia-Pacific region is lagging behind some parts of the world (such as Latin America and the Caribbean) in terms of ratifications (just one so far – Cambodia) but we can expect more Asia-Pacific countries to ratify in the next few
years.

One important issue for the Maritime Archaeology Program (MAP) at Flinders University will arise from Article 21 of the Convention which states: Parties shall cooperate in the provision of training in underwater archaeology, in techniques for the conservation of underwater cultural heritage and, on agreed terms, in the transfer of technology relating to underwater cultural heritage.

The successful Round 3 ALA Fellowship Program that MAP recently ran has been applauded by both ICOMOS (International Council on Monuments and Sites) and UNESCO as an effective way of raising the level of training in underwater cultural heritage in the Asia Pacific region. We look forward to being able to run ALA Fellowship Programs and other training in underwater cultural heritage in the future."

This Summer Update 2009 will focus on the people who work and study or have studied in the Maritime Archaeology Program (MAP) at Flinders University. It has brief biographies of MAP staff including Mark Staniforth, Jennifer McKinnon, Emily Jateff and John Naumann and PhD candidates Jun Kimura, James Hunter, Debra Shefi and Adam Paterson as well as some of our MAP alumni like Jessica Berry, Rhonda Steel, Matt Carter and Amer Khan.

"One fundamental change in social and cultural theory in recent decades has been the number and variety of theoretical perspectives that have come to the fore. In archaeology since the 1960s, theoretical approaches have taken the form of everything from the "New" archaeology to post-processual archaeology as well as been informed by perspectives such as Marxism, feminism, and structuralism among many others. Nevertheless, among some archaeologists, there is a strong and persistent atheoretical strain which supports and promotes the idea that archaeology simply collects scientific facts. This paradigm ignores those approaches that suggest that all data are theory laden or that data are affected by the paradigmatic anf theoretical framework used to approach it.

Recently some archaeologists, even some maritime archaeologists, have begun a search for a more holistic to archaeology informed by the social and cultural theory of the past thirty years."

For over two thousand years seafarers have tried a variety of methods to protect ships' hulls from attack and fouling by marine organisms. The use of sheathing to protect a ship's hull from teredo attack has been known since at least the 4th century BC. This paper discusses the history of sheathing, in particular the development of copper sheathing.

"Maritime archaeology studies human interactions with oceans, rivers and lakes in the past. In the historical period, maritime archaeology focusses upon the underwater remains of ships, boats or other watercraft or vessels and aircraft. It includes the study of objects and human remains that survive within such vessels as well as cultural material that was accidentally dropped, lost overboard or deliberately deposited into the water body. It also includes the remains of structures that were originally built wholly or partly underwater (such as bridges, piers, jetties and wharves) as well as the physical remains of human activity that originally took place on dry or marshy land but that has subsequently been innundated, either by rising water levels or by marine (or fluvial) erosion.

Historical maritime archaeologists also increasingly examine terrestrial sites, structures and landscapes: places that are not underwater but that are related to maritime activities such as lighthouses, port constructions, shore-based whaling stations or wider coastal, lakeside or riverside maritime landscapes."

Casks were the most common containers for the shipment of bulk commodities during the nineteenth century. Cooperage, the trade of making casks, has declined during the twentieth century to the point where two of the three branches of the trade have ceased to exist. The remains of the cask cargo found on the wreck of the William Slathouse provided an opportunity to study cooperage technology, the making of casks, cask contents and stowage methods in a nineteenth century sailing vessel. This paper discusses some of the results obtained during a short test excavation of the wrecksite in 1983.

By comparing the archaeological evidence with the historical document it has been possible to demonstrate the use of sub-standard components and poor quality workmanship. The increasing need for legislation to regulate standards and to ensure quality control is discussed.

"For a small sub-discipline of archaeology, maritime archaeology seems to have had a relatively long and glorious history in Australia. Celebratory reviews or overviews of selected parts of the history of Australian maritime archaeology have been published fairly regularly since the 1986 appearance of Graeme Henderson's book Maritime Archaeology in Australia. These publications include two articles that were published in the pages of this journal (Hosty and Stuart 1994; McCarthy 1998).

While there is obviously much to be celebrated about the history of maritime archaeology in Australia, a self-critical examination of the state of the sub-discipline with some ideas about where it might be going in the next two or three decades is, I suggest, a useful exercise as we enter the 21 st century."

This paper begins with an examination of the background and historical context to a voyage by the trading vessel William Salthouse that ended when the vessel was lost at the entrance to Port Phillip in July 1841. William Salthouse sank just a few years after the establishment of the colony to which it had been dispatched at the end of a voyage from Montreal and Quebec in Canada to the newly established Port Phillip (Melbourne) colony carrying a cargo valued at £12 000 that included flour, salted fish, salted meat, building materials and alcohol. Since 1982, archaeological and historical research has been conducted to investigate the cargo of William Salthouse and this paper presents and interprets some of the results of that research.

"Maritime archaeology in Australia today is a marginalised subject. This is despite a good professional publications record, an established international reputation (largely as a result of the work done in Western Australia) and, most recently, a series of successful AIMA conferences.

In this paper I am going to concentrate on the relationship between maritime archaeology and the general public rather than with special interest groups with particular needs such as SCUBA divers. In particular I am going to concentrate on providing public access to maritime archaeology through temporary and travelling museum displays."

"Early colonial economies in North America and Australia were commonly based on a combination of the importation of goods and a system of local production which included subsistence agriculture and hunting. Before 1850 the Australian settlements had a very limited and only slowly developing capacity to create or harvest, local supplies of food and alcohol. Furthermore in the nineteenth century the Australian colonies never developed the capacity to produce certain kinds of consumer goods. In the Australian contact the period and degree of "dependency" on external sources of supply varied according to well recognised factors like the growth of population and establishing or importing the means of production to the colony.

This book chapter considers trade between Canada and Australia through an examination of the voyage of the William Salthouse in what was the earliest attempt to establish trade relations between Canada and Australia."

The first major industries in what would become the colony of South Australia were the closely inter-related ones of sealing and whaling. Official European settlement of South Australia began in 1836, but for many years previously, small numbers of Europeans frequented, and sometimes lived on, its coastline and offshore islands. The activities of these men are largely unrecorded, and even less is known of the contributions of European women and children and Aboriginals. Archaeologists like ourselves are currently trying to learn more about these invisible people, and this article combines our discoveries with the evidence from the historical record. The study of European women and children and Indigenous people at whaling stations is still young, but it is already yielding results.

"Scurvy is a deficiency disorder caused by a lack of fresh fruit and vegetables in the diet and specifically by insufficient vitamin C (ascorbic acid). It is not infectious and results from a combination of psycho-social and environmental stress. The symptoms of scurvy include bleeding gums, loose teeth, bad breath, diarrhoea, dysentery, stiffening of the joints and blackening of the skin. Scurvy is of interest for what it reveals about the intersection of medical knowledge and the development of systems of ensuring the supply of an adequate quantity and quality of food for the population.

This paper considers the evidence for the occurrence of scurvy on convict and emigrant ships to Australia during the period 1837-1839."

As special interest tourism, in particular cultural tourism has become more popular the promotion and presentation of archaeological sites has become increasingly common. For many decades, tourist have been able to participate in archaeological site tours and heritage trails in places like the Middle East and Europe. This phenomenon is seen increasingly in other parts of the world. Initially the presentation of archaeological artefacts and archaeological sites took the form of museum exhibits, site tours, and site open days. In the last twenty years, however, heritage trails have become an important method of presenting a wide variety of heritage sites, enabling the public to access and enjoy these sites. Maritime archaeologists in some states of Australia have been extremely active in creating maritime heritage trails, primarily shipwreck trails, during the past twenty years.

In the 1980s, the Nautical Archaeology Society (NAS) introduced the NAS Training Scheme in Great Britain. As a result of substantial funding, initially in 1991 from the Department of the Environment and later from the Department of National Heritage's 'Heritage Grant Fund' the Scheme has expanded considerably. From a single National Training Officer in the early 1990s there are now Training Officers or Regional Co-ordinators for the North-East and South-West regions of England as well as Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales.
Initially restricted to Great Britain, the NAS Training Scheme was adopted by a number of countries in the early 1990s. This paper reviews the introduction of the NAS Training Scheme to Australia during the late 1990s and details the way in which it was tailored and developed for Australian conditions as the AIMA/NAS Training Scheme.

"The wooden sailing vessel William Salthouse was wrecked at Port Phillip Heads on Saturday 27 November 1841 at the end of a trading voyage from Canada to the new Port Phillip colony (Victoria) in Australia. The remains of the vessel were relocated in ten to thirteen metres of water by two SCUBA divers during a drift dive in August 1982. As far as can be determined, this was the first time that divers had visited the wreck site, since what was probably limited salvage work ceased in about 1842.

It is believed that the site had reached a state of relative equilibrium with its environment over the 140 years since wrecking, and only a very small part of the remaining wooden hull structure and organic cargo material protruded above the seabed. The vast majority of the material remains, including the wooden hull structure and wooden-hooped casks, lay buried within a large sand ridge (or sand wave) approximately three metres high."

"Ultimately maritime archaeology seeks to provide information about the way in which people lived in past times whether this is through technological, economic, social or cultural information. Maritime Archaeology in Australia operates in an extremely well documented time frame - a quintessentially 'historic' period. The interaction between history and maritime archaeology has many subtle and varied effects on the day-to-day operations of practitioners in maritime heritage preservation and cultural resource management.

This paper considers three books which discuss different aspects of public history and and heritage management which are relevant to the practice of maritime archaeology. It argues that cultural heritage practitioners need to reflect on what they do, why they do it and how their work fits into the the larger context of our constructions of the past."

As one of Australia's most intact timberr shipwrecks, the William Salthouse superbly illustrates the archaeological value of underwater heritage places. By reading the ship's manifest, which lists the wide range of cargo it carried, and comparing it to the artefacts recorded on nthe site, a great deal of information on early trade to the colonies has been recovered.