Current Events Poll: Ethical excavation of shipwrecks and Underwater C

[angelgal918]

I've been thinking (a bit...I know) and I was wondering if we as pirate reenactors could kind of take up the cause of supporting the ethical excavation of underwater archaeological sites rather than support the treasure salvors (more business oriented than concerned with "the public trust") who tend to stake out the "valuable" wrecks for profit, bring up artifacts and don't put NEARLY the time and effort into interpreting what they have that archaeologists do.

This rich history belongs to ALL of us- every culture that was (and is) part of the Atlantic Basin (and further afield) is valuable, and well, I'd just like to see the awesome folks that are on here help support the gleaning of information that we ALL can use.

Everybody's got that one site, that one battle, that one wreck that got them going, that one instance in history where they decided that piracy wasn't just a "passing" interest, that you HAD to put on those slops and get yourself all dirty with information and gunpowder.

What was yours?

Thoughts?

[Mission]

This rich history belongs to ALL of us- every culture that was (and is) part of the Atlantic Basin (and further afield) is valuable, and well, I'd just like to see the awesome folks that are on here help support the gleaning of information that we ALL can use.

According to salvage laws, that's not the case. If you want to change it, you have to get into the politics of it.

What interests me about that is that the impetus to find such things is the money that can be made off the find. It's a damned expensive undertaking to find a ship that's been missing for hundreds of years. (For a fascinating look into balancing profit and marine archeology, read up on the Atocha. Particularly Treasure Of The Atocha by R. Duncan Mathewson III.)

If you say to the people who find them, "This belongs to ALL of us now," you take away their impetus to find it. The government (who seems to feel it should be the de facto steward of things that belong to ALL of us) certainly isn't going to spend the money and time needed to find such things. So you have to find a balance.

Of course, even then what you may be doing is creating unintended results. (The government is particularly good at this - most lawmakers can't see what happens to their brilliant ideas beyond an election cycle.) If you tell salvors, "OK, you have to bring in a reputable marine archeologist to catalog the find before you can make any money on it" you're adding tremendous expense. Not just the cost of the archeologist, but more particularly in the time delay you create while the archeologist does their work. Salvors spend astonishing amounts of money per day when they are dedicated to finding something like this. Each day the archeologist spends cataloging the find costs.

Plus the find becomes more public as more people get involved with it (particularly the government) and now they have to have people out there protecting the find from poachers who aren't shackled by all the byzantine rules the government is fond of creating. So now it again becomes too expensive to bother doing properly. Thus it's better to keep your find secret and sell the stuff you find on the black market - meaning few people will see the finds at all.

So what's worth more to you? Having them brought up publicly or making the process too expensive resulting in 1) knowing they're out there somewhere safe from salvors and not being found or 2) thinking they're safe from salvors and actually having them truly plundered out of sight of the public gaze?

[angelgal918]

Fact is, even some folks with PhD's are working for salvors now. Doesn't mean that a PhD collecting the artifacts and then his business partner then selling off artifacts from under the public's nose is ethical. What a lot of people don't seem to realize is that despite the cost (and yes you can make money from it and according to CURRENT and outdated and outmoded salvage laws) it's legal-doesn't mean it's right or that we get the most useful data and analyzation out of it. Salvors destroy the archaeological record because they are only interested in monetary gain from artifacts.

Yes, the process is expensive. But just because you can pay for it, doesn't mean it belongs to ONLY YOU. Yes, Dr. Mathewson and Mel Fisher made a name for "treasure-hunting" in the 1970's and 1980's and made it very glamorous and seemingly very profitable, but honestly that kind of independent bootstrap enterprise doesn't pass for "independent archaeology" anymore. Everyone from Joe Blow treasure hunter (who has been documented as literally blowing holes in wrecks to get to the gold) to Odyssey Explorations seems to think they can just swoop in with a lot of pretty technology and "save the day". Doesn't mean that the public trust is benefitting from anything they're bringing up...except financially, and I don't see that being shared with the general community. FAR MORE MONEY can be made sustainably through conservation and research that can be then turned into heritage tourism. Quick buck or long-haul, sir?

I would highly advise you to read Jerome Hall's "The Fig and the Spade: Countering the Deceptions of Treasure Hunters."

The same salvage laws you state were not written for this kind of thing, the Law of Finds ("Finder's Keepers") is more based on abandonment and demonstrating the need for responsibility of the wreck to be reallocated, and was originally based on terrestrial finds, not maritime law. I'm directly paraphrasing Hall here.

The Law of Salvage was more based on wrecks contemporary to the moment of salvage and demonstration that objects were in "marine peril" so that (once again) cargoes could be reallocated to prevent looting.

Neither of these basic tenets applies any mode of thought regarding Underwater Cultural Heritage or the idea that a wreck may be intrinsically valuable based on information gleaned from it. Just because it's legal (at the moment) doesn't mean it's ethical to go down and take what you can physically bring up.

And who decides when it's "too expensive" to immortalize history? The salvors who have decided that "it takes too long" or "only we can pay for it" when they simply refuse to work with state and government archaeologists to do things in a proper manner? Or do they deserve this right because they can "buy" history? Which came first, the dissatisfaction with scholarly procedure or the need for profit?

Unfortunately, sir, you are basing your opinion on a business plan and a fear of government regulation instead of seeing that nearly everything can be studied AND recovered in a scientific and ethical fashion when working together with pirvate sources. Once again, do you want long-term historic tourism which can support an entire community structure and teach the public about your very passion, or would you prefer to keep your pennies and try to make a quick buck?

And as for artifacts being "plundered outside the public gaze", monitoring these sites, yes, takes investment-but how many times have you heard the phrase "You have to spend money to make money"?

[Commodore Swab]

I feel that salvors should be given free reign to recover what they find. Now having said this the govt should be given the first chnce to purchase at fair market value anything recovered. Much of the "treasure" recovered are items that are already in a museum and of limited value, say something special is recovered the salvors should be able to reap the rewards of finding something special instead of having it simply taken from them by a govt. This means that instead of reporting what is found it will be hidden and sold when possible, this promotes treasure hunters to be dishonest (why work hard only to have it taken from you). Some might say treasure hunters rape wreck sites to only get the gold and silver. Typically after years sometimes decades of research is done to locate a wreck and then countless dollars are invested into actually locating what their research has discovered a wreck is finally located. To actually recover items from the wreck detailed records are kept noting when and where everything has been found.

When a salvor does find a wreck to recover his initial output many items are sold to the public this is true. Looking at the Atocha as a simple example there is a wonderful museum and countless people that have been able to visit Kew West have been able to return home remembering history with a small token.

[Mission]

Ah, an idealist fresh off a book with an idealistic slant. Like I said originally, if you want to change it, you have to get into the politics of it. Good luck with your quest.

[angelgal918]

Not an idealist, sir, an academic. And I have gotten into the politics of it.

Unfortunately, sir, you have forgotten or mislaid two very important aspects of artifact acquisition by the government from salvors:

1) once an artifact is removed, we have nought but the salvors word that it was retrieved from a certain position, destroying the archaeological record and a number of deductions that could be made from said location. The chain of ownership has been broken: would you as a judge admit evidence collected by a bystander at the scene of the crime?

2) You make the sad assumption that only "treasure" is valuable. Or are heritage and culture just not relevant anymore because they don't turn a buck at the private level? I'm afraid such actions can only be reduced to "pimping history".

The "doing" of archaeology requires a real archaeologist- doing anything else is like saying "I want to save as many lives as possible, but hiring a cardiothorascic surgeon is just too damned expensive. I think I'll do it myself." Or would you rather spare the legal expense and represent yourself in a murder trial without the lawyer necessary to do a decent job? Like many out there, I sense you are of the opinion that the education needed to do the job right is of little value-perhaps that's why so few with a college degree of any level can find a job, people just don't see it as important anymore.

Treasure salvors think the government is their only hindrance, their only conscience. If they really wanted to learn from these sites, they might actually want to work with the people they claim to be replacing. I admit the evidence that former metaldetectors and recreational divers (who might otherwise be wreck "collectors" and small-time salvors) have been trained and certified as excavation site volunteers. They are happy to be a part of history, to make real discoveries that don't represent a bottom line, but help their community to gain a valuable resource in creating local tourism. Why not you, sir?

[angelgal918]

And as for an "idealist off a book" are you not ALSO a supposed "glamorist with a book"?

[Mission]

And as for an "idealist off a book" are you not ALSO a supposed "glamorist with a book"?

Sorry, I don't understand this statement at all. You'll have to explain. If you're referring to Matthewson's book, I haven't read it since (ironically enough) I was in college. In fact, I checked it out from the public library across the street from the university I went to. I really enjoyed the technical aspects of it.

Incidentally, I am neither a surgeon nor a sir. I play surgeon at pirate events and read 17th/18th century surgical procedure manuals in my spare time.

And, from my experiences in college, college students are the most naive of idealists because they're extraordinarily impressionable and have an altruism that only inexperience can maintain. Which doesn't mean it's a bad thing because they can also accomplish social change when they stay with something and get the right sort of public attention. (Although I do find that altruistic-inspired laws often go far off the intended mark when introduced into the real world. But not always.) So stay with it if you believe in it. See what you can do.

[angelgal918]

Oh, and the archaeological record is not the only thing to worry about in the "salvor's word" principle...we have to trust it even came from that WRECK.

[angelgal918]

Oh sorry, missing posters. Same argument applies.

[angelgal918]

Sorry, mission, I didn't see I was speaking to 2 gentlemen. No offense.

[angelgal918]

Yes, sir (Mr. Mission, whatever you like) I may be young and inexperienced in the field, but like you say, new blood means new developments. I do not style myself as the best-thing-since-sliced-bread in that regard, I just think these finds are intrinsically valuable. We don't pillage gravesites or look for gold on battlefields, so why should wreck sites be any different? Because they're fiscally valuable on the black marked and shiny?

We live and breathe this stuff...why should we not protect perhaps one of our most valuable conduits of knowledge on the subject? I know the economy is bad and we all want (and need) to make money some way, but should it really be off the graverobbing of people we claim to study and represent? I don't even think of it as graverobbing anymore-more like "life"robbing-we (in being too conscious of the fiscal rewards) are sacrificing what information we can gather for profit and are stealing away to obscurity the lives of the people we are most interested in. What sense does this make?

My apologies (sir) for I will try not to confuse my posts anymore and call ye by yer right names. I had a late night on the Pub last night

[Commodore Swab]

Todays "treasure" recovered from wrecks is far more then simply gold and silver. Iron pins, lead sheeting, and even pieces of wood that can be preserved are all treasure. My sister has a similar mindset to yours as she is an archeologist so I do not speak from a lack of knowledge. Its very easy to sit ashore and proclaim that mailboxes/blowers are totally destructive and should never be used to excavate a wreck. When you get your hands dirty its just possible you may learn to sing a very different tune. My personal gripe is when the govt. moves in and "collects" what has been found to preserve it and in fact puts it away behind closed doors often times not even knowing what they have collected. If they must collect artifacts how much is enough? 10 original identical coins, 100, 10,000? There are drawers upon drawers of coins alone in Tallahasse that the public will never see. Artifacts may be loaned to a museum like Pirate Soul in St Augustine that are mislabled and never researched. Case in point the last time I went thru the museum nobody had any idea there was a spyglass in a piece of conglomarate until I identified it for them, who knows if will be labled correctly in the future. Another piece on loan from the state showed a flintlock still holding the flint, you could make out the leather with the top jaw screw going THRU the leather not simply around the flint. This is another discovery that could change how we all clasp a flint in our guns making our reinacting more accurate.

Person A spends 5 years in the library looking for a wreck and invests his time and money looking another 10 years to find it. Person B steps in and says he cant do anything because he doesnt know what hes doing, anything that has been found person B confiscates. Seems to me person A is a researcher and a scholar and person B is a pyrate! Of course you know person A is the treasure hunter and person B is the state archeologist.

This need not be the case if archeologist can open their minds and at least listen to what treasure hunters have to say. Both need to work together. On EVERY permitted excavation site their is an archeologist on the team, these archeologist are often given a bad rep for the simple fact that they work with treasure hunters by other archeologists. True there are hunters working that are not permitted just look at the east coast (beach) of FL after a storm. We know there are artifacts that have washed up from the 1715 fleet that sank, why aren't archeologist digging there? Why do they allow people with detectors to look for items?

In a hostile inviroment like FL every year an artifact sits underwater it degrades.

I have heard stories of people finding a bronze cannon or a stash of coins, even ballast rockthat is secretly recovered and sold. IF the state and archeologists were more fair these things would not happen. Additional laws and restrictions will only make this worse, heres an example . . .

You are on a diving trip there recently was a storm and by chance you spot a glimmer of gold and it turns out to be an 8 reale worth say 3-5 thousand or 1500 as melted gold. You pick it up and tell someone you found it, uncle sam comes along and simply takes it. Would you leave gold down there? Now lets try a different approach you tell the govt you found it, they ask to see it and you show it to them they can either buy it from you or let you keep it. If its something special they pay alot for it, if its something common that they have already purchased many of then they let you keep it. You are ENCOURAGED to disclose your finds as you know you will be treated fairly for whats been found. Now there is a record of whats been found and where.

[angelgal918]

I'm all for museums and state archaeology teams working with people who are willing to invest in it as long as A) Ethics considerations in the acquisitions and exhibition (not parcelling out) of artifacts are met and we're not there for "just profit".

I'm trying to rework in my head a way for private investors can contribute to an excavation, get people involved, exhibit the artifacts (yes, exhibit. Unfortunately something limited by space and again, investment) and be able to get a return on their investment based on museum admittance, not the value of the actual artifacts. Yes, archaeologists have a highly negative view of treasure hunters (I have been advised that within my department, "Mel Fisher" is a dirty word and I'm starting to translate it from the southern definition of "bless your heart/how dumb can you be"...not that Mr. Fisher wasn't a smart man, it's what we in the South tend to mean when we say "bless your heart") mostly because underwater archaeology is a relatively new field and plenty of folks with appropriate dive equipment seem to be under the impression that they are "doing archaeology".

I personally see private enterprise as very helpful to the proposed financial needs already suggested on this post, but it must be done according to strict guidelines if we hope to get as much information from these objects as we possibly can. The problem is that people don't give archaeologists a whole lot of credit for knowing their stuff rather than seeing them as "just another beaurocrat" or "the evil govt."

Anyone not affiliated with an official excavation should be restricted from wrecks, yes, I believe. Having said that, I think that there are NUMEROUS ways (outreach, diver volunteer programs, private sponsorship) that we can get people involved, make the excavation more efficient and nobody has to go in and confiscate anything in the first place. Yes, to our western notion of private property, it's extremely unfair that someone should shell out lots of money and have everything they've worked for taken. But it's also unfair that people think they can privately claim history for themselves without benefit to the general public.

I really liked Jerome Hall's summation of the situation, (not the only one I know of, but his is the most coherent):

"That is not to suggest that only government archaeologists and NGOs should have public access to underwater cultural heritage. Neither is it to imply that private commercial entities should be barred from access. The UNESCO Convention addressed this issue in a number of its provisions: although commercial exploitation of UCH is banned—as is the general application of the law of finds and salvage—private commercial entities may be permitted access by the authorizing nation if they adhere to the Convention, including the scientific Annexed Rules for research and recovery. In sum, no one should have access to UCH for the private commercial exploitation of an important public resource. However, access to UCH should be granted to those who agree to adhere to international standards and requirements to ensure that research and recovery are, indeed, in the public interest."

Conlin and Lubkeman are far less kind, but they point out something interesting about the psychology of it all in the US:

"In most other parts of the world, governments have become increasingly cognizant of the shameful realities of treasure hunting in its many permutations, and the UNESCO Draft Convention on the Protection of Underwater Cultural Heritage (a treaty dedicated to the protection of world cultural patrimony) has found widespread support from governments and professionals from around the world—with the embarrassing exception of the US. In the US, gripping mythologies of sunken pirate gold, coupled with strong ideological commitments to issues of individualism, free-enterprise, technological mastery of the environment and a healthy distrust of government meddling forms a wellspring of rhetorical devices with which treasure hunters seek to shape public discourse and advance their personal finances at the expense of world heritage."

Page(s): 1, What's Relevant About Underwater Archaeology… and Not about Treasure Hunting

It's a bit like Spain's stepping all over themselves: after trying to claim Mel Fisher's treasure early in the discipline's exposure to treasure hunting on a large scale, they looked really greedy jumping in on a Western Hemisphere wreck they had nothing to do with searching for, much less excavating. Then, they treat the Odyssey team on the Black Swan by far less ethical legal standards than most would expect of a 1st world government in the modern age. But their argument is solid: no matter who finds it, it's Spanish culture. If they had been a little easier on the trigger, they might not have looked so bad to the world community in either case, and might actually have been granted something.

And degrading objects is not ALWAYS the case- more work needs to be done on the effects of marine environments, but there's some evidence that in certain environments, the actual degradation of artifacts reaches a long plateau period, so don't worry too much about that just yet.

The flip side to paying off "finds" is that who determines how "accidental" it is? Sounds a bit like a governmental pawn shop to some people...easy money if you say you "found" it.

I personally at the moment feel that if you have 6 million nearly identical coins, a museum acquisitions all of them, then decides they don't need or can't exhibit all of them, there's very little value to secreting them away. Artifacts in a secretive vacuum, away from the eye of the public and people who could make use of the information, may as well not even exist. But what if a numismatist develops some new test 30 years down the road, and the only testable coins have been sold off and thus lost to the archaeological community? Do the coins serve a better purpose being sold off to the general public to keep up interest and benefit the museum financially? (museums have been known to sell off whole collections for this purpose, especially art museums) or do you hold on to everything, hoping that one day, you'll have everything you need to submit your first metallurgical radiocarbonfancyshmancy test that will tell you something amazing?

I need to do some more studying on European approaches to this thing- the British system has become a bit of a posterchild for a working relationship with "mudlarkers", folks who metaldetect along the Thames River, and have made some serious discoveries that have changed our views on the history of London. IT IS POSSIBLE- but not so long as people think of treasure hunting as a hobby, viable source of income, or some sort of retirement plan. The archaeologists are trying to act as judges in the situation and staying disinterested in the financial value and pull of these objects and stay interested in the historical value-trouble is, a lot of them work within government programs that are either outdated in legislation or approach or are not terribly concerned with (as Doc Mission put it) anything more lucrative than the next election cycle and staying "PC". Unless legislators can be convinced of the particular use of heritage tourism to the business sector, it's hard to get anyone's ear.

[angelgal918]

Smiley face on post? I must recall how I did that...?

[Commodore Swab]

Is it Spanish culture because it was a Spanish owned ship? Is it Cuban culture since the ship was built in Cuba? Is it American culture since it sank off America? Is it South American culture because Spain had it crafted, stolen, or transported there? Is it Chinese Culture since some of it may have originated there? The point is it is everyones, but nobody cares about it until AFTER its found then everybody wants their piece of the pie, EVEN treasure hunters. Most recently emeralds were found that are over 40 miles from the Atocha and not enev from the same era (don't ask me how I know this) yet the Fishers are trying to claim them as having come from their wreck.

Lets look at the 1605 fleet that left Columbia and sank in a storm carrying a vast cargo making the Atocha look like pocket change. "Treasure Hunters" have been looking for these 4 ships for almost 40 years having not found them yet. There is no govt agency, no archeologists looking for them. What do you think will happen realistically when they find them?

You can quote as many people as you want but it breaks down into simple greed, greed on the part of EVERYBODY. Everybody is a pyrate trying to get what they can. Somewhere along that line there is the hope from all of us that we may learn something from our lost history and be able to share that history with everyone.

[Mission]

Smiley face on post? I must recall how I did that...?

The forum software automatically converts B + ) into . I personally find it irritating, but I have tried to remember to always use numbers when making lists. Or you could use the list function, but it breaks up your text.

If you actually want smiles, you can click on the little icon at the top center of the edit window and pick from a listing of them at the bottom of the screen. But the software also automatically converts certain combinations into graphic smilies and I've never figured out how to make it stop.

You can quote as many people as you want but it breaks down into simple greed, greed on the part of EVERYBODY. Everybody is a pyrate trying to get what they can. Somewhere along that line there is the hope from all of us that we may learn something from our lost history and be able to share that history with everyone.

I don't think it always comes down to greed. Perhaps you've never met a true idealist. (I've met your sister - very briefly - and I didn't really get the impression she was an idealist as I define them, although she certainly had those tendencies.) Every so often an idealist comes along and naively starts trying to change things - and occasionally succeeds. But, as I said before, idealists don't tend to see the larger picture very well because they tend to over-focus on the aspect that appeals to their altruism. As a result, they change things for the better in some ways and create new problems in other ways they didn't foresee. It's a natural hazard of being an idealist. Then the realists figure out a way around it (because if they don't things frequently come to a standstill) and the situation alters a bit, but basically go back to the way it was before the idealist got involved.

Hmm. Everything does eventually come down to a sort of greed, doesn't it? It's human nature. Only the idealists think that humanity is going to change to their view and they are a minority in any population. (They have to be. Societies run by idealists would be nightmarish, no matter how popular media portrays them. Then again, so would a society without any idealists. Nature works that way.)

[angelgal918]

Idealists? Natural part of the puzzle. Trick is, the longer they stay in the puzzle, the less "idealist" they become. Called "Burn-out." I've often been a victim...but not yet...

Fact is, everybody seems to have a dog in this fight because maritime/nautical/underwater archaeology is such a young field. Even archaeologists argue over specifics, and very few parameters are NOT up for discussion as to what makes you walk and talk like a duck. Divers want to dive on it. Treasure salvors want the gold. States and governments want the artifacts. It seems sometimes like the archaeologists are the only ones who want the information. Problem is, they don't get a whole lot of attention in their own right because you can't "eat history" unless you market it in some format and most folks seem just generally turned off by the thought of even talking to someone with a PhD unless they've been on the History Channel.

I'm always interested in the media angle because we've all been interested in these things because we've been exposed to one image or another regarding the discipline- what does the general public think of archaeologists? One party comes along and says "This is great...we need more archaeologists" another party comes along and says "This is totally wasteful...stop paying for govt archaeology projects!" You've basically just taken someone's years of devotion to study (and more than a few thousand dollars in education) and either blown it up into the greatest thing ever or chucked it down the drain. Depending on that, you may get more or less donation/financial contribution, govt attention, etc, which means you can do more or less excavation and those excavations may or may not be driven politically within the system by "what we can "sell" as archaeology to the public" and may drive the archaeological questions being asked and studied because, as they say, "enquiring minds want to know."

Trust me, it's always been a matter of lack of funds that "real archaeologists" get to do their thing. When there's a dearth in the available assets, private industry will step in and try to "sell it to the public" that what they are doing is no different than the govt branch (state branchs usually in the US) whether or not they are doing things "by the book".

And as for whether I myself am an idealist, I'm no different than anyone else-I want my work and effort and (future) knowledge to be appreciated, and I want there to be work for me to do when I get there- and I would hate to see an ocean full of pilfered and destroyed wrecks for me to study. Greed? I'm greedy for more information and seeing it benefit the people that it affects.

Swab- the ownership thing? Totally onboard. The only way this "claiming" thing can stop is if its belongs to and is stewarded by the general public: whether artifacts are excavated, conserved, exhibited by location or by culture is up for debate, bc as you say, everybody wants a slice of the pie.

Similar debates rage between states over collections of Civil War artifacts. Here in North Carolina (I can't remember specifics, could find them for you if necessary) we tried to orchestrate a return of captured items from the War of Northern Aggression. We sent our Federal item to one state, hoping to get some of ours back. Do you know what the governor of that state did? Said "Thank you" and walked away from the collaboration with his goodies. That's why I say it belongs to ALL of us- you can't define ownership based on any one criteria, or everybody else gets shortchanged, not to mention that you can't say "This artifact is only important bc it affected this one group of people..." Look up the academic nomenclature surrounding "Atlantic World History" sometime...EVERYBODY'S got a dog in that fight. Also, check out any archaeological magazine- Native American interests across the nation have made almost a system out of lobbying for artifacts based on "intellectual property". I'm not gonna argue against that one...I'd get my butt beat, and well, too!

I just happen to think that happens better within a govt framework because (if you've ever tried to get a govt job, it's about 12 hoops away) it is seemingly more discriminating (hiring criteria, avg "pool" qualifications, everybody and his brother applies, who's hired based on what experience, what's the concentration you're after, what direction is the department headed in, etc) Are the government frameworks perfect? LOL absolutely not! No funding, no political attention, and we're always encouraged to see the "political side"- i.e. do what's right for the present prevailing party, which may mean no funding, no staffing, and no breaks or appreciation for operating costs THUS fewer sites get excavated with any real return. Can't get something from nothing...yet politicians "ask". Frankly, I think some would just dissolve archaeological branches altogether if they could because it's just some other beaurocracry they can't make a name for themselves with.

Right now in the US, protection is matter of a few key criteria:

1) Is it military

2) Is it NPS or marine sanctuary

3) Is it in maritime territory generally claimed by a state

Everything else is pretty much negotiable as far as I can tell. States are left to their own devices, and the avg number of positions that deal with Underwater Cultural Heritage on an archaeological level is 1. ONE! Do we call that a check on big government or a lack of attention by said same government? I would personally like to see more archaeologists. Can we work with private interest? We certainly need to work harder at it. You know they found one of T.E. Lawrence's old maps (could only find articles on its display in the Imperial War Museum in London, none on where it was actually found, though I seem to remember it being a library somewhere) that was drawn up based on tribal boundaries and claims, rather than on European colonial boundaries. Now, imagine for a second that we had had the manpower to search for that in a collection, sometime prior to...well, take any major development in the Middle East in the last 50 years...can you imagine the difference that could have made politically? And let's face it-Joe Blow doesn't have the credentials or frankly the trust of institutions enough to get into most collections to look for that kind of thing, and I'd be afraid of what could be destroyed if they did (remember that scene where Jack Nicholson sneezes in the library in "The China Syndrome"? Yeah, think of that.) Hell, I've heard William and Mary is still technical (and possibly territorial) with who they let see the court records of Blackbeard's crew's trials, archaeologists, historians and all.

I just think the trained archaeologists with classically trained motives should be driving the boat because of all the desired and desireable objects people excavate for, information is the only thing you can actually share in the regard to private property. We bitch and moan about where the artifact goes for testing, conservation, and exhibition purposes, but you don't have to take actual possession of something to learn from it. We just don't want to see that information rust away in somebody's shed and become a piece of junk because they took it off the beach and didn't tell anybody anything. IF it's going to go to hell, we'd like to know where it came from, how it got there, and we'd rather it go slowly, and in a contained environment where there is at least *some* hope of someone finding out its real historical value someday.

And thank you guys for arguing with a faceless "idealist." I'll get a pic up here one day so you'll have a face to curse/rant at/argue with :) Not that you gentlemen would do that, of course.

[Commodore Swab]

You remind me so much of my sister. She has become as much an idealist as she possibly can.

I have a freind who actually has a permit to recover from a wreck. There is an archeologist on the team, and everything recovered he is allowed to keep once it has been reported and preserved. This wreck has been picked over by treasure hunters for the last 50 years and is now burried 5-10 feet deep in soft sand so holes must be dug just to find the top of what might be left. Last season some pirates went out painted my friends permit numbers on their boat and started digging on "his" wreck. Nothing was done when we informed the sanctuary that they might be going out there, nothing was done when we told the sanctuary they were out there, and nothing was done when they admitted they had been out there. The pirates believe it or not turned in a report of their criminal activities and freely admitted to recovering hundreds of artifacts (true most were simply iron pins) including some gold, coins, pistol, and a couple other intestering items, remember this is what they reported finding. What is the end result? Nothing has hapened to them, the sanctuary has their reports and is trying to collect their artifacts. None of the information turned in has been given to my friend who could really use it (where they dug and found stuff). He will also more than likely not even get to even see any of the artifacts much less get to keep that came from his wreck that are rightfully his. When I say rightfully his I mean that the courts and sanctuary have both agreed that he keeps everything.

There is a reason they are called "treasure Hunters" and not treasure finders or treasure collectors. They will hunt and look for what others have failed to find or have forgotten about. Once its found bring in the archeologists and the govt to help preserve it for the public. However, one must be able to trust the other and so far the govt has a very long way to go to earn the trust of treasure hunters.

[Mission]

Jack Nicholson wasn't in the China Syndrome. He was in Chinatown. Although I don't remember the scene you're talking about, it sounds like something from that movie.

The core problem (as I see it) is that the government has larger things to concern itself in than underwater archeology. Sure, they can throw a little money that way, but it's a mighty unimportant issue when you stack it up against some of the other things it feels the need to get itself involved in. For example, my sister works at the CDC where she sometimes champions health initiatives. Conservation of historical sites (human history) often take a back seat to such things (human welfare). Even she waxes eloquent about lack of funding, how things should be, etc. Plus there are bigger fish still that the government wants to try and fry as you'll hear in the daily news if you listen closely.

It seems to me that the best they are going to do is make laws that govern how things will go on such sites and maybe throw a few bucks here and there at projects that will barely make a dent in the overarching cause. Hopefully the laws that are worth anything get enforced, but as Commodore Swab has shown, they frequently do not. (This is one result of realists making things work.) Like its parent, the Coast Guard has larger issues to deal with than an old wreck and underwater archeology seems to have always been something of a cash sinkhole from what I've read.

This means that if you want something actually done as opposed to just changing the rules (which is how I first understood you), you really need to rely industry. Industry relies on profit. Find a way to make the two work together as you're hinting at and you might have something. (However this is where I have often seen Idealists fail. They'd rather fall on their swords than give up even a small part of their personal cause.)

Otherwise, look forward to pushing the rock uphill until you become burnt-out as you put it or just plain bitter. The benefit of the latter is that you can then write an idealistic book about how bad things are and how they should be and thus impact future generations of idealists interested in your pet topic. Then you can watch them and see how they do at playing Sisyphus.

[William Brand]

Jack Nicholson wasn't in the China Syndrome.

Aye, it was Jack Lemon.

[Mission]

Ah. I've never seen that movie - it never interested me. (Curiously, my thought after reading the MAD Magazine satire of it - as close as I got - was that it sounded like something that was made by idealists for idealists.)

[Commodore Swab]

Money/funding shouldn't be an issue at all if one is dealing with treasure hunters and their finds. There is pleanty of money to be made off the wreck to provide for the preservation of the wreck. Look at what Treasure Hunter Are McKee was doing in the 1950's on his own, he opened up a museum and would physically take tourists to see his wreck. The problem with "funding" is that there is money to employ an archeologist working on a wreck but there is a lot of time spent looking where no archeologist is needed to be paid. The cost of employing an archeologist while simply looking for something is expensive. And most archeologists want to work full time and not only when a wreck is being dug on.

[angelgal918]

I'll be straight up with you boys-the only interest I have in working with industry is getting my hands on their money for the purpose of excavating thoroughly. If state/govt archaeologists could compete on a monetary/investor level, I have a feeling we'd get more attention.

One of the issues at stake is what do we do once we find a wreck? Swab, I'm sure your sister has filled you in on "in-situ" preservation-the idea of leaving it alone and letting it become a "living museum". To my mind, this works when there's already an ecosystem on top of the wreck- oceanographers (who often get treated as "real" scientists simply bc it's more of a hard science and bc everybody goes running to them to protect the environment, etc) jumped on this, and now with the evolution of NEPA (1969) and especially the National Marine Sanctuary Act (1972) protect wrecks as part of the marine ecosystem (this is the law that prosecuted Kane Fisher for not only excavating a marine sanctuary, but fined him for disturbing the seabeds in the process).

I'll tell you, I'm a baby when it comes to how much I've absorbed of archaeological philosophy, but I'm not completely convinced this is the best way to go. Generally archaeologists use "in-situ" to say "We're only going to bring up what's pertinent to the questions we want to answer". Is this really the most practical approach? OR do we do this because

1) Congress favors it bc it doesn't require full-excavation funding and

2) we get support from environmentalists?

Trouble is, it gets us around the "marine peril" argument- if we try to block salvage claims by saying it's actually not in marine peril, how can we justify going in and doing a full excavation bc it "gets it out of harm's way"? Sticky situation based on realistic problems. As a public historian, I always feel that the closer the public can get to artifacts, the more they will want to understand about them. Call me old-school, but not only does an "in-situ" exhibit (video, interactive top-diver communication, drawings/illustrations of the site) seem more costly than a traditional exhibit, as nice and flashy as it is to interface with a diver, I'd rather just see the thing in a case-it was built/made on the surface, used on the surface, intended for the surface, and underwater is a VERY alien for a lot of people to try to interpret.

Permits: Again, most laws regarding protection of UCH are recent- just because it was legal 20 years ago, does that make it more or less right? Just because it's legal now, does that mean there shouldn't be a law against it? Congress makes a life out making laws, I doubt they'd agree. To be honest? I think the only reason Florida divides, allocates, and basically sells permits is because

1) they've got people beating down their doors for them and

2) the State of Florida (for a number of ecomonic reasons) can't begin to afford to do it all themselves. And Swab-it's rediculously attrocious that they have a confession and didn't do anything. You'd think if somebody (federal or state) has the balls to outlaw it, they'd have the balls to enforce it. Again, economics, but it seems the State is unwilling to turn people off that way (such as would-be hunters).

Mission, I've very aware of the idea that archaeology does not prevent mass academics, genocide, or famine, thank you. I'm very aware that to govt, archaeology is something they've been pressured into, in a way. I've said before, you can't "eat history"-all you can hope to do is build it into a "product" that can be consumed on a larger scale by the general public, and try to do so without compromising your integrity. People used to create "industry" without any regard to environmental consequences, and it was legal and considered "realistic". Now we're realizing that we can't exploit everything for short-term gain without long-term consequences. Screw up the environment, lose your home. Screw up your history, lose a sense of your soul and your place in society. At least that's what every history teacher in America will tell you. Are you willing to sacrifice even basic historical education (supported by research) because it doesn't "turn a profit"?

What I'm proposing is that we alter the relationship business has with archaeology. I'm very aware that as long as academia continues to stamp its feet while at the same time isolating itself against the needs of the larger world, we will become somewhat extinct in the larger course of society. But neither am I willing to give up the integrity of my research or sell my soul to satisfy someone else's need to see a profit, or take their word for it when they say they're "doing things ethically" when their motives require a mindset that tells a different story. Case in Point: I used to think (Dr.) Sean Kingsley of Odyssey Marine Explorations was awesome-he was "the dude" who got to the heart of all the identification questions, the guy who knew what markings were, the guy who knew how to technologically manipulate an artifact on the ocean surface to get the information he needed to make other decisions about the excavation. Read his blog on Wreckwatch the other day (a group that for all its website seems like a classic Cultural Resources Management firm, who for the most part, tend to stick to working for industry to satisfy govt requirements before laying a pipe or gas line or such and have no interest in "treasure hunting") and then I came across his argument:

"The most troubling dimension of the case that has warped US law is the hyper-sensitive political issue of sovereign immunity. Simply put, warships on exclusively non-commercial ventures still belong to the flag country that launched them; crossings with a commercial component lose this status. The concept is a very modern legal invention that has nothing to do with concerns over sunken archaeology and heritage, but everything to do with protecting modern naval equipment from downed planes to spaceships, submarines, 20^th and 21^st-century warships, personnel and weaponry, including nuclear missiles."

He's basically poo-pooing the Sunken Military Craft Act (2005) bc it (by extension/reciprocal relations) protects the military craft of other nations who are willing to protect our craft in their jurisdictional waters. This was a law that any red-blooded American with any sensibility toward the military will recognize as an attempt to protect their final resting places. And he's chewing it out as "protecting modern naval equipment" for military development purposes, all because it prevents him from taking (and keeping) the Black Swan/Mercedes treasure. They haven't proven for certain that it wasn't the Mercedes which was a Spanish naval ship (regardless of what it was doing there). Classic hamstringing of the argument, all because of money, faulting the whole law because he can't make the loophole fit his case. And this isn't the least of the philosophical smokescreens.

Here's what I'm willing to concede: private salvage with (as Swab mentioned) a creditable archaeologist onboard calling the shots. Museums get first dibs on artifacts that can be proven to have been excavated by processes that are documentable and ethical (this varies- states will likely have to set their own standards) and all artifacts, if split among museums (I think this might actually help, as multiple museums can share access to a collection) would be accessioned according to strict practices that would allow tracking ownership of the artifacts. That way, if new technology develops and someone wants/needs to test an entire collection, they can track all of it.

I'll tell you one thing: there was a survey done (don't ask me names, although I could find them for you. Just bein lazy right now) that tracked the "legal" and "ethical" acquisitioning of artifacts-most museums didn't know the laws relating to what you can acquisition and from whom and what is required from it. Thus, many museums now have artifacts in their collections that were bought with the sole idea that "we need to save this from the guy that owns it...it's too valuable for us NOT to acquire". Pretty sorry state of affairs when we can't monitor ourselves in that respect, so unfortuneately there have been "treasure hunters" and their artifacts that have basically been validated as partners solely because they were found "in possession". To a lot of researchers, these are now "tainted artifacts" because we don't have a lot of the information we need about how they were acquired to interpret them correctly- site plan studies, taking the word on which wreck its from, etc. This is not a a pet animal that we can buy off the owner to prevent its further torture-we have to have global standards we can all agree to to ensure the validity of research done on these artifacts. Funny thing is, US is the only 1st world country NOT to have ratified UNESCO guidelines, which would go a long way to protecting our treasures the way things have been preserved in European countries. And it's because people like the treasure hunters and business want to keep their hands in the pie.

You're right, I was thinking of China Town.

[Commodore Swab]

Permits: Again, most laws regarding protection of UCH are recent- just because it was legal 20 years ago, does that make it more or less right? Just because it's legal now, does that mean there shouldn't be a law against it? Congress makes a life out making laws, I doubt they'd agree. To be honest? I think the only reason Florida divides, allocates, and basically sells permits is because

1) they've got people beating down their doors for them and

2) the State of Florida (for a number of ecomonic reasons) can't begin to afford to do it all themselves. And Swab-it's rediculously attrocious that they have a confession and didn't do anything. You'd think if somebody (federal or state) has the balls to outlaw it, they'd have the balls to enforce it. Again, economics, but it seems the State is unwilling to turn people off that way (such as would-be hunters).

He's basically poo-pooing the Sunken Military Craft Act (2005) bc it (by extension/reciprocal relations) protects the military craft of other nations who are willing to protect our craft in their jurisdictional waters. This was a law that any red-blooded American with any sensibility toward the military will recognize as an attempt to protect their final resting places. And he's chewing it out as "protecting modern naval equipment" for military development purposes, all because it prevents him from taking (and keeping) the Black Swan/Mercedes treasure. They haven't proven for certain that it wasn't the Mercedes which was a Spanish naval ship (regardless of what it was doing there). Classic hamstringing of the argument, all because of money, faulting the whole law because he can't make the loophole fit his case. And this isn't the least of the philosophical smokescreens.

Here's what I'm willing to concede: private salvage with (as Swab mentioned) a creditable archaeologist onboard calling the shots. Museums get first dibs on artifacts that can be proven to have been excavated by processes that are documentable and ethical (this varies- states will likely have to set their own standards) and all artifacts, if split among museums (I think this might actually help, as multiple museums can share access to a collection) would be accessioned according to strict practices that would allow tracking ownership of the artifacts. That way, if new technology develops and someone wants/needs to test an entire collection, they can track all of it.

It is very difficult, very time consuming, and very expensive to get a permit in FL with the various stages that you must go thru. I know of 2 people that have been trying to get permits for the past decade.

Long story short nobody cared about the ship until treasure was found. Nearly ALL cargo traversing has some sort of military support and can be tied in that way. I was slightly surprised you didn't bring up the stolen artwork that was also suposed to be returned.

Are you saying for example that the coins that were so far recovered from the Mercedes ALL need to be tracked in case someone in the future wants to test the entire collection? Considering 17 tons of coins and considering they were all 8 reales at 1 oz each thats roughly 600,000 coins alone to keep track of!