Underwater Archaeology
Prof. Aaron Brody's discussion of his early experiences with maritime archaeology on Ask An Archaeologist last week inspired us to put together some resources on the theme of underwater archaeology for this week's Archaeology at Home message.
To start, listen to an informative discussion of this topic in Underwater Archaeology with Jessica Irwin from the Women in Archaeology Podcast.
You may have seen this exciting news from a few days ago reporting the first submerged ancient Aboriginal archaeological sites found on the seabed, in waters off Western Australia.
Here's a 42-minute lecture about the Uluburun Shipwreck from the Late Bronze Age, presented by Julian Bennett at Bilkent University. If you want to see more from Uluburun, check out this website, which has some great photos of the artifacts and excavation.
For a review of 3000 years of shipwrecks, check out Maritime Archaeology of the Baltic Sea, a lecture at UCSD's Qualcomm Institute with Jonathan Adams (Department of Archaeology, University of Southampton).
Of course, the ancient Romans have to make an appearance. Check out Nero's Sunken City from PBS's Secrets of the Dead series about mapping underwater ruins at Baiae.
Check out this Wired article about The Underwater Archaeologist Who Surfaced Not One, But Two Ancient Egyptian Cities and then explore the exhibit about those finds in a video on Sunken Cities: Egypt's Lost Worlds with St. Louis Art Museum Curator curator Lisa Çakmak.
Of interest especially to younger audiences is this sequence of short videos from NOAA's Ocean Today series, offering an introduction to this topic, with lesson plans, fun facts, and additional links.
To add to our themes of "underwater archaeology" and "heritage stewardship, community archaeology, and the African diaspora" is this 23-minute podcast interview Diving with A Purpose: A Conversation with Dr. Albert Jose Jones about his work with Diving With A Purpose, a group he helped form of Black scuba divers who locate and document sunken slave ships around the world. This is from the Harvard Museum of Science and Culture's HMSC Connects! Podcast, a weekly podcast that goes behind the scenes of HMSC museums to talk to the scholars, researchers, collection keepers, exhibit designers and other fascinating individuals who keep the museums humming along and create a compelling array of exhibits and programs. At the link above, you may find more topics of interest in the full list of all HMSC podcasts.