Page 22 - Green - Maritime Archaeology: A Technical Handbook. 2nd ed

Chapter 1
Introduction to Maritime Archaeology
Much has changed since I wrote the first edition of Maritime Archaeology: A Technical Handbook in 1989. Possibly the greatest change, at the technical level, has been the advance in the use of computers and their introduction to mainstream maritime archaeology. The development of the Internet, the amazing power of the computer, and the advent of reliable, cheap, and extremely accurate position fixing systems like the Global Positioning System (GPS) have provided opportunities that would have been unthinkable in 1980s. Now, with a small hand-held GPS, a position can be obtained anywhere on the surface of the Earth accurate to about a couple of meters. Although much has changed, surprisingly, a lot of things have not. So in revising the handbook there will be changes in some areas and very little in others. I have decided to omit the chapter on conservation as this subject is now well covered in the literature and there are several handbooks that can be used as references. Over the past ten years, maritime archaeology as a subject has become increasingly involved in cultural resource management, so I have introduced a new chapter dealing with this issue. In addition, the plethora of computer packages which are currently available now make it impossible to deal with each in detail. As a result, I have illustrated the general application with a program with which I am experienced. This is not to say there are better programs, or that the one discussed is the best, it is simply that I have used it and know how it works and know its limitations. Readers are encour- aged to investigate other systems, particularly as there are always new systems being produced, that may well be better or more sophisticated.
When Maritime Archaeology: A Technical Handbook was first published there were few books that dealt with the practical application of maritime
1