The team took part in our fourth Maritime Archaeology Tweetchat this evening. A wide range of questions were asked, but many of them linked with this week’s topic, so there were lots of questions on ethics and also some on UNESCO’s Convention on the Protection of Underwater Cultural Heritage.

There were also some questions on excavation and iconography.

The post Summary of our fourth Maritime Archaeology Tweetchat appeared first on Shipwrecks and Submerged Worlds.

Whilst Shipwrecks and Submerged Worlds is live, the team will be hosting 4 tweetchats:

• Thursday 4th February
• Thursday 11th February
• Thursday 18th February
• Thursday 25th February

The chats will take place from 20:00- 21:00 GMT*.

How to take part

• Log in to Twitter by 8pm (GMT).
• Follow the hashtag #FLShipwrecks
• Post any questions or comments that you may have.
• Members of the team and others will respond.

If you do not have a Twitter account, you can still follow the hashtag, but you will not be able to add your comments.

We will post a summary of the discussions on this blog.

How to participate in a Twitter Chat.

Further information

You can follow our Twitter account @UoSShipwrecks

You can also subscribe to a  list featuring members of the Shipwrecks team: https://twitter.com/UoSShipwrecks/lists/shipwrecks-course-team

*15:00-16:00 EST
12:00-13:00 PST
7:00-8:00 AEDT
9:00-10:00 NZDT

The post Join our Tweetchats appeared first on Shipwrecks and Submerged Worlds.

Hello and welcome to Week Four. This is a question and answer session which normally we have lots of the facilitators and educators here altogether in the same room, but this week lots people are out in the field and so what we’re going to do is record a few question individually and hopefully we can then answer them in the same way that we did last week.

So, the first question I’m going to answer is about Tybrind Vig and a question came in about why we think they had hearths on the canoes found at Tybrind Vig.

I think this is a really, really interesting question because the most obvious answer, of course, is that people wanted to transport fire from place to place. You know it’s really, really difficult to light a fire and you’re not going to just let it go out if you could possibly transport it and save yourself the effort. So, from moving from one settlement to another, for example, from the summer settlement to the winter settlement or a different activity zone you would take that fire with you.

However, there have been lots of different hypotheses that have been put forward. Another one is that people perhaps needed it for warmth whilst on board longer journeys and for cooking fish. We can see this in ethnographic accounts, for example, the aboriginals in Australia quite often use fires on board bark canoes and they use that for cooking and for warmth as well when doing longer trips and we have archaeological evidence to support this from and late Neolithic site in Scandinavia which has a hearth on board the log boat and in this hearth we have charcoal, but we also have burnt fish remains as well so we know that people were cooking fish on these fires.

Another hypothesis was put forward by Anderson which suggested that perhaps these fires were used as fishing lures and you can see fishing lures and lights being used at night for eel-fishing in the same region, so it’s quite a possible hypothesis.

Another question that’s been put forward is why were these boats abandoned?

Now obviously this is something we just don’t really know. But, I think I would wonder whether this is something to do with the changing climate, changing environment because there’s lots of effort put into these boats and if you imagine a 10 metre long boat, you wouldn’t just abandon it for no reason. So perhaps the region slowly began to silt up. We know it was a lagoon, it was a muddy sort-of-lagoonal area, perhaps the conditions were just slowly changing and it just wasn’t viable to use them any more. Or perhaps the people were just moving to a different area and they got left there. So, we just don’t know.

Week 3

3.3 Sea-level change

Catherine Emmitt (retired teacher from the UK): Where [are] we in the Milankovic cycles now?

https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/shipwrecks-2/comments/5777725

3.5 Exploring sea-level change

Ariana Bachechi (Chicago, Il, USA): Out of curiosity, I also looked at the maps near the African Great Lakes region and was surprised to see that there is no evidence of them even as early as 6,000 years ago. I was under the impression that they were formed due to tectonic shifts, which will eventually disconnect the horn of Africa. I thought this was an old, and very long, process. Does anyone have more information about how they were formed and when they first appeared?

https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/shipwrecks-2/comments/5782322

Week 4

4.5 Studying maritime traditions and skills

Richard Yoast: Can anyone recommend sources that focus on the use of decoration and the arts (sculpture, painting, weaving) in shipbuilding?

https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/shipwrecks-2/comments/5893768

4.7 Tybrind Vig, Denmark (5400-4000cal BC)

Astrid Niemann Jorgenson: I wonder why some of these boats were abandoned, wear or just general damage? Also, why was it necessary to transport fire from place to place?

Simon Hodgson: Question that pops into my head; when would gold have first been recognised as an important substance of high status and value? Presumably early on in humanity’s existence, there wouldn’t have been much need or time for pretty trinkets.

https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/shipwrecks-2/comments/5899408

4.8 Cape Gelidonya, Turkey (1200BC)

Susan Brett: Marine archaeologists ought to make their work more widely known through television, instead of leaving the broadcast hours to Odyssey Marine.

4.9 The Grace Dieu, England (1439)

How did University of Southampton purchase Grace Dieu for £5?

4.12 UNESCO Convention

Sarah Williams: Can one of the team explain why neither the US and the UK have not signed the Convention? Shame on them.

4:16 Professional, amateur or archaeology for all?

Gordon Dyne: Is it just me or is there an almost evangelical zeal to some of these articles ?

The post Questions on Week 4 appeared first on Shipwrecks and Submerged Worlds.

Charles Weager (Blackwater, Yateley, Hampshire, UK): I find it interesting that a simple method of changing the sail shape existed. That they could head to within 60degrees of the wind is fascinating. Was this technology available to Medieval ships? Is it lost technology? I had always understood that until the use of Lanteen (Triangular) sails that shipping was seriously restricted hence the need to rely on the trade winds for ocean navigation. Even the shipping along the Indian ocean coasts depended on the prevailing monsoons because of the undeveloped sail technology. Yachting still does, anyone sailing from Europe to the Americas will head south to the Azores or the Canaries before heading West on a favourable wind.

https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/shipwrecks-2/comments/5572143

2.12 Navigation and trade

Astrid Niemann Jorgensen: What did Mariners do when they got blown off course?

3.2 Our changing seas

Alastair Mellor: Are the affects of man taken into account? For example a vast area of the Netherlands is reclaimed from the sea and in England the area of the Wash is smaller than it was in medieval times (due in part to Dutch engineers). Are there many landbased shipwreck hunters? https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/shipwrecks-2/comments/5727917

3.2 Our changing seas

Christine Scates: I hope this isn’t a silly question but in the video it mentions the volume of sea water being affected. How is this measured? https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/shipwrecks-2/comments/5637433

3.11 Marine geophysics for submerged landscape investigations

Does Southampton use the Kray computers at Bracknall for seismic interpretation or have their own?

3.8 Geophysical techniques for maritime archaeology

Valerie Naylor: Are submerged worlds protected from, for example, the placing of wind turbines or oil rigs? If a developer discovers archaeological remains during exploration, are they obliged to report them? And if so, are archaeologists given a time window in which to assess the site or can a preservation order be placed on it, as on land?

3.13 Archaeological methods for submerged landscape investigations

When talking of hand axes & the like found in river gravel deposits. Is it possible that these early peoples made offerings to their gods as has been found in much later sites such as Flag Fen?  JACKI HART

3.16 Case study on marine geophysical surveys: the SS Richard Montgomery wreck

Lots of questions about the safety of the SS Richard Montgomery and how make wreck sites with ammo safe!

The post Questions on Week 3 appeared first on Shipwrecks and Submerged Worlds.

Like last week, we’ve got a selection of team members (Fraser, Thomas and Rodrigo) together in an informal setting to try to answer some of the questions that learners have asked this week. A few of them are ones that were posted in Week 1 after our last video, but most of them are from Week 2.

Questions carried over from Week 1

1.10 History of maritime archaeology

Richard Yoast (Chicago and Santa Fe, USA): Is there much interaction and collaboration between the Maritime Archaeology team and those working on Portus? If so what has been learned from such a collaboration. https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/shipwrecks-2/comments/5493449

1.13 The development of a discipline

Peter Probert (West Sussex, UK): I’ve often wondered about a related aspect to the salvage/treasure hunting aspect, which is what is the protection in place vis-a-vis UK ships which have been sunk in international waters? Eg, HMS Repulse was sunk in the South China Sea with large loss of life, but the UK legislation appears to cover UK waters only. Is there anything else in place to help protect against salvage operators, professional or amateur, in this respect? https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/shipwrecks-2/comments/5540654

1.15 The earliest seafarers

Emily Ginder (Bloomfield, New Jersey, USA): How do we know the following: “The first secure evidence of seafaring in the Mediterranean comes from the 11th- 10th millennium BC in the form of obsidian from the island of Melos found in Franchthi cave in Greece.” How can you rule out a later time, like a traveler bringing home a souvenir from his travels?’ https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/shipwrecks-2/comments/5512413

Questions relating to Week 2:

2.4 Ships, shipbuilding and sailing in the ancient Mediterranean

Wendy Cooper: Do we have any evidence when/how ship building developed from ‘one man building his boat’ to the sophisticated types of craft seen by Roman times? https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/shipwrecks-2/comments/5570192

2.8 Medieval seafaring

Loftsman: I am loving this course and very informative as well, although i still would like an answer of when saws started to be used for the cutting of planks in the shipbuilding process, splitting of planks by wedge while effective left so much finishing work to be done by axe or adze while the two man saw was the technological advance for the time I guess. https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/shipwrecks-2/comments/5622680

2.3 Late Bronze Age Trade in Eastern Mediterranean

Debbie Wareham (Tal Y Cafn, North Wales): Really enjoyed reading the article. International trade during the late Bronze Age, and the role that Cyprus played in the production of Copper is really interesting. I was wondering tho’ about trade with Britain and export of Copper from here at that time – such as the Great Orme Copper Mines in Llandudno, North Wales? It has always been of interest to understand where the local smelting sites were, and how did they export the copper ore? As I understand, there was some small scale local smelting carried out of low grade copper ore, the rest was exported. The coastline was much further out during those times than today, and there are ancient tree remains on the beaches, so boat building was possible. Also of interest, was the exchange of ideas to develop copper mining in the first instance – was there a steady movement of people and ideas who knew how to identify a source of copper within an area? https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/shipwrecks-2/comments/5595052

2.13 A new technology: from clinker to carvel

John Higham (Wigton, Cumbria): Is it possible that clinker-building, resulting in less rigid hulls, produced ships more suited to the larger waves that were more common in northern and Atlantic waters? https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/shipwrecks-2/comments/5623184

2.2 The Classical World

Dave Hall (London Kent borders, UK): From this introduction it seems that the course focus is on the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean and I am wondering about open water links with Britain. I am aware of two Bronze Age ships that have been found in Britain and I suspect that there were regular shipping routes between Britain and Europe. There were links between Britain and Europe in the Iron Age but I am not if any ships have been found. These links definitely existed in the Roman period but I am not aware of the types of ships used. Therefore I would be interested to know if these ships were the same as those used in other areas or were they different. https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/shipwrecks-2/comments/5537341

2.26 Mid course review – we want to hear from you

Gwendolyn Yaegar: Wow, I love this course. The way each subject is backed by a video and article is particularly valuable because there are times where I’m doing the course but can’t see the video. Also, I’ve had the opportunity to share some of these videos in one of my classes, Ancient and Medieval History. I’m going to be teaching a lesson on marine archaeology next week and I was wondering if you had any tips for me or could do a brief summary of the most interesting aspects of the course to a high schooler.

https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/shipwrecks-2/comments/5634416

The post Answering your questions on Week 2 appeared first on Shipwrecks and Submerged Worlds.