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Centre for Maritime Archaeology, Page 2

T – 24 hours

After a lot of hard work by a huge number of people the Shipwrecks and Submerged Worlds course goes live tomorrow.  I and my colleagues have been spending the weekend reading through the different elements trying to iron out any minor issues, all the while thinking about how it will be received.  At points while we were putting this together it felt like we'd taken on an impossible challenge. Continue reading →

Material seas

    In the last week I’ve spent an improbably large amount of time thinking about various philosophical conceptions of maritime space. This is due partly to Monday’s British Waters and Beyond: The cultural significance of the sea since 1800 at the Royal West of England Academy in Bristol, and partly to my increasing obsession with sailing directions. Continue reading →

Axes and ancient boat building skills

CMA masters students spent most of the long bank holiday weekend at Buckler’s Hard in the New Forest learning ancient boat and ship building skills. The backdrop of the River Beaulieu, the intermittent sunshine and occasional ice cream belie the serious labour (both physical and intellectual) involved in learning to work with adzes and axes. Using a range of replica tools students worked with chunks of oak to recreate boat building technologies from the Bronze Age to the Post Medieval period. Continue reading →

Modelling the potential for submerged prehistoric archaeology

  This wednesday as part of an English Heritage funded project we will be holding a workshop to discuss different options open to archaeologists when considering the potential for submerged prehistoric remains.  The session will draw together practitioners from the UK, Denmark and the Netherlands to discuss their experiences and ideas on topics including; deposit modelling, predictive modelling and underwater direct evaluation (sampling/trenching etc). Continue reading →

Maritime Bus

Maritime Bus Last week the Maritime Bus came to the Avenue Campus on a University Open Day to provide an insight into maritime archaeology for prospective undergraduate students, and to give current postgraduate students training and experience in outreach activities. The Maritime Bus is the only archaeology-themed exhibition of its kind in the UK. Continue reading →

‘What is a boat? Materials and moments’ Seminar on 27th Feb.

  The next Departmental Seminar on Thursday Feb 27th, 5-6pm, will see Jesse Ransley discussing material stories and boats: What is a boat? Materials and moments. Subodh Gupta’s 2012 sculpture ‘What does the vessel contain, that the river does not’ is a kettuvallam, a ‘sewn’ boat from Kerala, filled with everyday objects, from chairs and cooking pots to a bicycle and television. Continue reading →

St. Mary’s River Archaeological Project – Findings from the 2013 field season, by Scott Tucker

Scott Tucker, postgraduate researcher at the University of Southampton, will give a talk on his maritime research and fieldwork. This Centre for Maritime Archaeology Research Group seminar will take place on Thursday, January 30, at 14:00 in the Centre for Maritime Archaeology lecture room (Building 65b). A live broadcast is available on this link http://coursecast.soton.ac.uk/Panopto/Pages/Viewer/Default.aspx?id=f1807609-d14a-4347-9f54-3849fd64701d Abstract: The St. Continue reading →

MA/MSc Maritime Archaeologists’ trip to Falmouth (boat recording)

Day 1: On November 15th, twenty-something intrepid archaeologists began their journey to deepest, darkest Cornwall. The trip got off to a fairly inauspicious start, with one person being left behind. Nevertheless, in true archaeological spirit, we soldiered on. Following a long yet fairly uneventful drive, we made it to Falmouth. Finding the boat store, however, proved more difficult, and we began to wonder if Julian’s set of directions were in fact our first test. Continue reading →