Page 32 - Green - Maritime Archaeology: A Technical Handbook. 2nd ed

Chapter 1: Introduction to Maritime Archaeology 11
archaeology and this has resulted both in a loss of cultural material and in a lack of institutional expertise in the field.
Today there are many sources of information on maritime archaeologi- cal work. There is little or no excuse for maritime archaeologists (or those who are working in this field) not to publish their material. The Interna- tional Journal of Nautical Archaeology must hold the prime place as the leading journal in this field. It was through the foresight of the late Joan du Plat Taylor, who started the journal in 1971, that today we have a major source for publication of reports of projects spanning 30 years. The Australasian Institute for Maritime Archaeology Bulletin for Maritime Archaeology has a similar record of 24 years of publication. There are other journals and some annual conferences including the Society for Historical Archaeology annual conference and the international symposium on boat and ship archaeology. The recent encyclopedic publications by Delgado (1997) and Ruppé and Barstad (2002) are the most comprehensive review of the field of maritime archaeology on the international level.
Today the Internet is awash with information on all sorts of subjects related to maritime archaeology and of all sorts of quality. A cursory search on the Internet of the word maritime archaeology produced 38,000 hits. Publishing material on the Internet is easy and has a great number of advan- tages. First, and most important of all, it will get to a very wide public. It is cheap to produce and provided you can ensure its long-term maintenance, it must be one of the most effective ways of communicating information. It is possibly the most worrying aspect that, although there are literally tens of thousands of sites holding information, one wonders what will happen to these sites in the long term. Whereas museums and government institu- tions may be expected to have a long-term survival, what happens if they are closed, or the individual hosting information on a local Internet service provider (ISP) decides that the costs are too much? Although hardcover publications are not likely to be replaced in the near future, they are expen- sive to produce and it is difficult for authors to find publishers willing to accept anything but the more popular material. Notable exceptions are Plenum Press and British Archaeological Reports, the latter publishing both a British series and a much more extensive International series.
There is an educational dimension to this subject. Maritime archaeology is a subject that is now increasingly being taught at universities at both a degree level as part of a normal archaeology degree and at a postgraduate level. There are now a very large number of institutions teaching the subject, and this is producing a steady stream of trained individuals who are able to take on projects in a disciplined and competent manner. The intro- duction of the NAS course provides recreational divers with the opportu- nity to develop their skills and expertise and through this process obtain a