The Importance of Underwater Archaeology Shipwrecks are unique time capsules, providing archaeologists and historians with insight into the past. Shipwreck sites not only feature a vessel, a magnificent artifact, but they often hold cargo, personal items, tools, utensils, and other diagnostic artifacts. Shipwrecks humanize history.
Through the study of shipwrecks, cargoes, armaments, equipment, and personal possessions of the crews and passengers, archaeologists are gaining a better understanding of the important role of maritime commerce, exploration, and marine technology in shaping world history and human culture. Archaeological sites, on land and underwater, are cultural resources that have scientific, historical, educational, and recreational value. However, these resources are fragile and nonrenewable. Underwater archaeologists at the Wisconsin Historical Society are working to identify, preserve, protect, and provide access to submerged cultural resources. Many aspects of archaeology overlap with other subjects such as history, geology, science and sociology. To understand the evidence for human activities in the past, archaeologists have to ‘excavate’, or dig to uncover the buildings, rubbish, burials and anything else that may have been left by people in the past.
The excavations that archaeologists do are carefully planned.Everything they find is painstakingly recorded, drawn and photographed. Once the excavation has finished, all the records, drawings and photographs are examined along with the objects that have been uncovered, and archaeologists research what has happened on that site over time. Archaeologists don’t just work on land – there are also underwater archaeologists working all over the world on sites that have been sunk (shipwrecks) or covered by the sea as water levels have changed. |
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May 2015
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