Nathan Richards

The abandoned ships' project: an overview of the archaeology of deliberate watercraft discard in Australia

The Abandoned Ships’ Project (ASP) was a research initiative of the Department of Archaeology at Flinders University, South Australia, and carried out in conjunction with the doctoral research of one of the authors (Richards 2002). The project involved the compilation of a database of more than 1,500 discarded and partly dismantled watercraft sites, including information from the archaeological inspection of more than 120 deliberately discarded ships. Researchers used this data to assess the degree of correlation between discard activities and economic, social, and technological issues. The logistics of discard were also examined as reflected in commentaries describing discard processes and as seen in the archaeological signatures of these events. This information illustrated the causal relationships among processes (landscape, economic trends, regulatory frameworks, and cultural site formation) associated with harm minimization, placement assurance, salvage, and discard activities.

Abandoned Ships and Ship Graveyards: Exploring Site Significance and Research Potential

The remnants of noncatastrophically lost, deliberately discarded watercraft have been a subject of maritime historical and archaeological enquiry for quite some time. Studies of ships reutilized as boat burials and votive offerings, or transformed into foundations, buildings, and other structures, are well known in maritime archaeological literature. Less common are studies of collections of vessels abandoned by their owners at the conclusion of their useful lives. Nevertheless, this research does exist; occurring in the context of the discovery of buried assemblages of watercraft, surveys of huge collections of inundated vessels, and detailed studies of isolated intertidal hulk sites. This chapter will explore themes surrounding the significance and research potential of these abandoned ship resources.

Conflict and Commerce: Maritime Archaeological Site Distribution as Cultural Change on the Roanoke River, North Carolina

For centuries, the transportation provided by the Roanoke River, North Carolina, has played a vital role in the economic and military history of the area. The Civil War illustrated the importance of the waterway as a military consideration, when both the Union and the Confederacy strove to control the river. The conflict inflicted grievous harm upon the region’s maritime transportation. Taken as a whole, the shipwrecks and abandoned vessels of the river provide an exceptional vantage point regarding questions of technology and economy, both in times of peace and when these tranquil periods are juxtaposed against warfare and upheaval. This research uses statistical and geo-spatial analyses of the shipwrecks and abandoned vessels of the Roanoke River in an attempt to discern anthropological patterns. Both historical and archaeological data are the subject of investigation. Three major themes: manner of loss, trade, and technology, are explored primarily to interpret how cultural change is reflected in the assemblage of shipwrecked and abandoned vessels of the waterway. The trends that emerge are often interwoven among these themes, and through them, this paper attempts to explain such diverse phenomena as shifting trade patterns, wreck clustering, vessel dimensions, and the dichotomy of behavior between times of war and times of peace.

The Watercraft of Castle Island, Washington, North Carolina

Between June 1998 and June 2000, the Maritime Studies Program at East Carolina University (ECU) conducted three underwater archaeological field schools in Washington, North Carolina. During these projects, archaeologists and students examined the bottom of the harbor of Washington, near Castle Island for submerged cultural resources, and documented 11 vessels with Phase II pre-disturbance survey techniques. The watercraft proved to be of a diverse array of vernacular vessel types; from schooners, flats, terrapin smacks, oyster sloops, and sailing log canoes, to river steamers and motor boats. Research indicates that Hurricane Floyd may have moved, buried, or damaged a number of these vessels in September 1999, and the results of the ECU preliminary investigations remain the only evidence of the existence of some of these watercraft.

Thematic Studies in Australian Maritime Archaeology

Theme-based research has the advantage of shifting focus from the “site” to the “idea”. For this reason, thematic studies represent an addition to the theoretical toolbox of maritime archaeology, and offer an alternative to the still predominant historical particularism of the discipline in Australia. They are also an important step towards the integration of maritime archaeology into the mainstream of terrestrial archaeology as well as an indication of the originality and innovation of maritime archaeological researchers. Such developments do much to widen the respectability, legitimacy and acceptance of the sub- discipline amongst its parent tradition, and it could be said that the growth and increasing sophistication of thematic studies in this country is a part of this broadening trend. In conclusion the author agrees that: “The time has come for anthropologically oriented archaeologists to approach shipwrecks as a data base for the study of human behavior” (Murphy, 1983:89).