Nicholas Budsberg

Protecting cultural heritage and disseminating archaeological research are two of the primary tenets of archaeology. Protocols, such as the 2001 UNESCO Convention, emphasize monitoring sites over excavation and post-conservation because of the financial constraints and labor involved, as well as the physical space needed to treat, store, and display collections. No concise field standards exist however, few clear directives are offered, and as a result, the application of appropriate conservation in situ practices is minimal. In response to these issues, a standardized approach is presented here that includes affordable and efficient directives for monitoring and documenting sites, along with recommended techniques that can help preserve and disseminate archaeology. This paper also explores standard methodology that can provide an assessment of risks posed to a cultural heritage site, establish an acceptable limit of site degradation before a rescue excavation, and incorporate public stewardship as a means of site protection.

The 2015 field season in the Exumas, Bahamas on the Highbourne Cay Shipwreck.  The presentation details the project and archaeologists, site dynamics from 1960 to today, timbers documented during test excavation, preliminary assessment and future work

Archaeological work and cultural heritage management are significantly limited by time, personnel, and financial resources.  Many submerged and terrestrial archaeological sites are fragile, and are located in easily accessible areas, leaving them exposed to destructive processes.  The successful management of our cultural heritage involves regularly monitoring each site, but most management groups lack sufficient resources to conduct detailed surveys that include metrics, qualitative assessments, and comprehensive visual documentation.  The use of three-dimensional, photographic modeling techniques can overcome many of these logistical issues by contributing substantial and informative data that can visually document a site accurately, and provide the means to measure, describe, and assess the condition and risks present.

Almost three decades ago J. Richard Steffy (in: Tzalas (ed) Tropis II, pro- ceedings of the 2nd international symposium on ship construction in antiquity. Athens, pp 315–320, 1990, in: Tzalas (ed) Tropis III, proceedings of the 3rd international sym- posium on ship construction in antiquity. Athens, pp 417–428, 1995) voiced the need to standardize the recording and publication of shipwrecks. Cluster analysis of construction features is difficult if archaeologists record different and non-overlapping features. This paper discusses the necessity to standardize the recording and publishing of a set of consistent and compatible basic construction features when archaeologists assess, survey, or excavate wooden shipwrecks and proposes a methodology for the recording of wooden hulls. It also emphasizes the urgency of a wide and complete sharing of archaeological information in maritime archaeology.

The Rio Grande do Norte astrolabe may have been found in Brazilian waters, although its provenance is unclear. It was bought and sold at auction in the Unites States in 2011, and the instrument represents a well-preserved specimen within a small and poorly understood collection of published marine astrolabes. It is signed by Agostinho de Goes Raposo, a member of a line of documented Portuguese astrolabe makers, and dated to 1656. This paper relates the condition, treatment, and ethical situation of the artifact, and hopes to advance our understanding of this class of navigation instruments.

Marine astrolabes were a simplification of the existing Islamic calculating devices and were used during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries to measure the height of the sun at noon on sailing ships. With this value and the proper tables, sea captains could calculate the latitude and estimate the position of their ships during the long oceanic voyages that characterized the first age of globalization. This paper presents an inventory of all marine astrolabes known to exist, and proposes a taxonomy and chronology of their styles, based on the available data.

This little report is intended for young nautical archaeologists and follows a number of other reports and presentations made by the ShipLAB team for the UNITWIN network.
We strongly believe that archaeologists should adopt a common methodology to record ship’s hull remains, so that they can be easily compared and shared among the growing community of nautical archaeologists.