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Blog, Page 13

17th-century English ship remains found in St. Mary’s City, Maryland, USA

Ship Remains Identified in the St. Mary’s River Working and pleasure boats have plied Maryland waters for centuries.  No one knows how many wrecked or abandoned ships lay hidden In Maryland’s rivers and bays.  One suspected underwater site that was first mapped in 1994 gave up some of its secrets this summer.   Scott Tucker, archaeologist and doctoral candidate from University of Southampton in the United Kingdom, has been exploring what may be the remains of a ship in the St. Continue reading →

Illyrian Coast Field School: Shipwrecks of Croatia

The Illyrian Coastal Exploration Program (ICEP) is an interdisciplinary underwater sciences field school exploring the eastern Adriatic coastline through archaeology, ecology, and geology. The field school partners with leading research centers in each Balkan country such as the International Centre for Underwater Archaeology in Croatia (ICUA) and the Regional Center for Underwater De-Mining in Bijela (RCUD), Montenegro, as well as RPM Nautical Foundation. Continue reading →

ACRG at field-school in Estonia

Ten days ago three members of ACRG visited Estonia to participate at the archaeological field-school. It was organised by Marge Konsa from University of Tartu who also spent several months in Southampton as a visiting research student. Field-school took place in Lihula, a tiny village in West Estonia. County of Läänemaa is filled with great archaeology, so we could enjoy little of it as well. Continue reading →

What’s your ambition? Archaeology?

Today and tomorrow will see about 24,000 people come to the University of Southampton open days. If you are one of those people we look forward to welcoming you at the archaeology department. As William Davies noted yesterday in his blog post a "range of artefacts and publications by staff will be available for guests to look at, together with a selection of student dissertations, so that people can get an idea of the high quality work our undergraduate students produce. Continue reading →

Archaeology at the University of Southampton Open Day, 5-6 July 2013

Owing to a last-minute change of staff plans, I find myself down to give two talks about Archaeology and the department itself, and conduct tours round our main Archaeology building (otherwise known under the alluring title of building 65a). A range of artefacts and publications by staff will be available for guests to look at, together with a selection of student dissertations, so that people can get an idea of the high quality work our undergraduate students produce. Continue reading →

Meetings make History

At the end of May I visited Florø, western Norway as part of the scientific/steering committee for the 'Meetings make History' project run by Ingrid Fuglestvedt at Oslo University. The 'Meetings make History' project is based on Ingrid's analysis and interpretation of the Stone Age rock art of Scandinavia, characterised by animal motifs. Continue reading →

How Crime, Corruption, and Murder Are Hidden in the Elusive Black Market Stages of Antiquities Trafficking

There is an on going debate among scholars studying antiquities trafficking — illegally removing cultural artefacts from one country and smuggling it to another for sale — as to the level of organized crime involvement. In a recent article in the International Journal of Cultural Property I try to crack this debate wide open through the use of explicit examples of crime within the trade. I argue that the trade does not operate as a hierarchy like traditional organized crime does. Continue reading →

Underwater RTI HMS Invincible

On February 19th,  1758 the HMS Invincible set sail out of Portsmouth Harbor for Canada to join the British fleet to fight the French.  Unfortunately, due to a domino effect of extraordinary bad luck, she ran aground on Horse Tail Sand not far from the harbor.  Invincible was a French ship launched in 1744 and captured by the British in 1747.  At that time the British out-number the French on the sea. Continue reading →

Laser Scanning at Portus

In October of 2012 myself and Gareth Beale were in Portus collecting a series of datasets, these included a series of high resolution 360 panoramas around the site which Gareth has processed and a full laser scan model of the Palazzo Imperiale. The panoramas have been explained in a previous post by Gareth and after several months of processing the data, I am able to present some of the completed work through this blog. Continue reading →