In 2006 I started my archaeology degree as well as my diving career with particular emphasis on Maritime Archaeology, encouraged by the first Nautical Archaeology Society (NAS) course given in Mexico.

From 2006 to 2011 I studied my BA in Archaeology at the National School of Anthropology and History (ENAH) in Mexico City. In this same period the Archaeological Survey Lab of Institute for Anthropological Research based at the National University of Mexico (IIA-UNAM) allowed me to join them. I have been fortunate enough to participate in several international projects in Mexico, Spain, Israel and the UK, some of them in collaboration with different universities from US, Italy, Chile, Argentina, Colombia and the previously mentioned countries.

From 2011 to 2012, I was a field officer in the excavation of the port city of Magdala, located in the Sea of Galilee in Israel.

In 2013, the National Committee for Science and Technology (CONACYT) granted me a scholarship in Mexico, enabling me to pursue the MA programme at the University of Southampton, joining the Centre for Maritime Archaeology (CMA).

My research during the MA was focused on the site formation processes of the HMS Invincible shipwreck located in the east Solent, UK, using combined historical, archaeological and environmental data from the National Oceanography Centre (NOC). During this time Pascoe Archaeological Services (PAS) and MSDM Marine have allowed me to carry out commercial work as a diving tender in England, Wales and Scotland.

Currently my PhD research project deals with maritime landscapes of the main ports of Mexico. Considering that landscape in archaeology continues to play a pivotal role in seaports today, little is understood on how this develops.

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I am the Director of Archaeology for the Albanian Center for Marine Research and one of the Field Directors for the Illyrian Coastal Exploration Program. Together with my ACMR and ICEP colleagues I teach international field schools along some of the beautiful and historically important coastline in the world with partners like the regional UNESCO Centre, the International Centre for Underwater Archaeology in Zadar, Croatia. The main course photo is one of the incredible sites located along the Adriatic coast.

I also find underwater caves to be enormously interesting. As the underwater archaeologist for the Cave Archaeology Investigation & Research Network (CAIRN) I am editing a book titled The Archaeology of Underwater Caves, due out this fall.

In 2011, I returned to university to pursue a PhD at the Centre for Maritime Archaeology at University of Southampton, though I continue my work with the ACMR and CAIRN. My PhD research examines innovation and technological change, primarily through examining an ancient naval battlefield recently discovered off the coast of Sicily by the Soprintendenza Del Mare and RPM Nautical Foundation, where I am a research associate.  Using the latest methods, I am reverse engineering the warship rams and conducting impact testing to figure out how precisely these ancient weapons worked. Impact testing consists of smashing exact replicas of the rams together – science and archaeology!

You can find me on Twitter @peterbcampbell, where I’m often discussing underwater research or engaging in archaeological debates on topics like treasure hunting, the Santa Maria, why Hitler stole art (and why culture is a target during conflict), and the illicit antiquities trade. You can read my papers on Academia.edu or find my current projects at my website. Also head over to MaritimeArchaeology.com and to Institute for Archaeologists Maritime Affairs Group, two websites I help run, to find out the latest on the underwater research!

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As a keen sailor, HSE commercial diver and general lover of the life aquatic, I would happily spend most of my time in, on, or under the waves.  As such, I am interested in most dimensions of maritime archaeology but my specialism is in the really early stuff, from early human migrations and the global origins of seafaring to the prehistoric landscapes now submerged by rising sea-levels.

I am passionate about exploring what makes us human and why we go to sea, what drove our earliest ancestors to step foot off dry land, and the inherent skill, knowledge and social organisation implied by seafaring.  My interest in this research developed after spending several years studying Neolithic seafaring in the Mediterranean through analysis of the obsidian trade, analysing thousands and thousands of chipped stone tools that could be geochemically sourced to island locations in order to map maritime activity and prehistoric island colonisation.  The more I learnt about the Neolithic the more I realised that seafaring was already an important and well developed activity and this inspired me to delve further back in time, to explore the origins of seafaring.

I am fascinated by how people engaged with the sea in the past and understanding the changing maritime environment is an important element of this.  People living on the coast have always been affected by coastal dynamics and changing sea-levels and many early archaeological sites have been submerged due to Holocene sea-level rise since the last Ice Age. With a multidisciplinary approach combining underwater archaeology, marine geology and geophysical survey techniques, we can identify and map these submerged landscapes and the archaeology preserved within them.

After completing a PhD at the University of Cambridge, I worked as a post-doctoral fellow in the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research before being awarded a Leverhulme Research Fellowship and moving to the University of Southampton in 2009. I currently hold an interdisciplinary lectureship within the Southampton Marine and Maritime Institute. Over the last few years I have worked on projects in southern Italy, Mauritius and the Solent, whilst my current research focuses on the north western Australian continental shelf.

I am a member of the CMA and CAHO, teach on the MA/MSC in Maritime Archaeology and currently hold the position of Reviews Editor for the Journal of Maritime Archaeology.

During this course I will be exploring examples of sea-level change, submerged landscapes and the Who, Where, When, and How of early seafaring. If you are interested you can follow me on Twitter @RHelenFarr. I am really looking forward to sharing my research over the next few weeks!

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My work focuses on how theories and models of public engagement are currently being applied to maritime archaeology. I look at how academics think maritime archaeologists are communicating with the public and then go and interview people who are working on engagement programmes to see how theory is being applied. Hopefully, my research will present a better picture of how to make maritime archaeology more accessible and people more engaged in their maritime heritage.

Prior to beginning my PhD research I completed an MSc in Maritime Archaeology from the University of Southampton and a BSc in Archaeology from Cardiff University. I also hold a BFA in Photography from the University of Saskatchewan.

I have worked on a variety of maritime based programs, included the Centre for Maritime Archaeology’s Montenegro research project in 2012 and the Southampton Maritime Festival in 2013.  I am also a volunteer on the Maritime Archaeology Trust maritime bus.

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I’ve been present when the videos for the course were being filmed, looking over the shoulder of Joe, our amazing camera-man. Many of our videos were filmed in Southampton, but team members have also been filming around the globe.

It’s been incredibly tricky working out what can be included in the course as Maritime Archaeology is such a vast discipline and 4 weeks is a fairly short course. All of the team are incredibly busy with their usual jobs, so we could not expand the length of the course, but we will be indicating where you can go to continue your studies.

I will be facilitating in FutureLearn for the duration of the course. Although I am unable to answer questions about the content of the course, if there are any technical problems or queries relating to how FutureLearn works, I will do my best to answer them.

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Hello, I am Fraser Sturt and I am one of the educators on the Shipwrecks and   Submerged Worlds course. I am a maritime archaeologist with specialisms in prehistory, geoarchaeology and advanced computational techniques. Essentially I am interested in how people’s relationship with the world’s oceans and seas has changed through time; from the impact of changing sea-levels on population and resource distribution through to the connections  created through seafaring. Answering questions related to these themes is complex, requiring knowledge of a variety of techniques and an ability to work both on land and underwater.  This means that my job never gets dull, and that the questions I am interested in are relevant across the globe, and have significance for how we think about the present and future, as well the past.

While my passion is for understanding the changes which occurred both socially and culturally in North West Europe over the last 12,000 years (particularly in the period 12,000 – 4000 years ago) and the amazing potential of submerged landscapes, I am increasingly interested in how changes over this period played out in other regions.  Recently this has seen me working on the pacific coasts of South and North America. I’ll also admit to a creeping interest in earlier periods (the submerged Palaeolithic landscapes of North West Europe), as well as shipwrecks…

The other important part of my job at the University of Southampton is teaching undergraduates and postgraduates about maritime archaeology and geoarchaeology. I currently coordinate the MA/MSc in Maritime Archaeology and supervise a number of PhDs on maritime, geoarchaeological and prehistoric themes.

If you’d like to read about one of my current research projects you can follow me on twitter (@FSturt),  or take a look at the Neolithic Stepping Stones website, run in conjunction with Duncan Garrow at the University of Reading.

I am looking forward to hearing peoples’ thoughts and ideas on the course!

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