Page 368 - Green - Maritime Archaeology: A Technical Handbook. 2nd ed

Chapter 13
Post-Excavation Research
I. INTRODUCTION
Post-excavation archaeological research has been singled out for a special chapter of its own because it is the raison d’être of maritime archaeology. Archaeology can be defined as a science which is used to study the past. History and archaeology share common goals as they both seek to understand and interpret the structure and mechanisms of past societies. They differ in that historians use written records as their raw material, whereas archaeologists investigate the physical remains of these societies and cultures. Maritime archaeology is part of the spectrum of archaeology. Many people misunderstand what maritime archaeology is about, thinking it involves only excavation and the subsequent pub- lication of a catalog of finds. Such misconceptions play into the hands of treasure hunters whose interests are served under the guise of archaeology. This simplistic notion of maritime archaeology greatly impedes its progress toward a scientific discipline and although it is well accepted today as an academic field of study, it lacks some of the rigorous precepts of science. Theoretical frameworks are still lacking and many workers in the field labor under the problem of trying to establish these frameworks.
The objective of this chapter is to explain how to analyze and interpret the archaeological record. Previous chapters have discussed the technical methods of recovering the archaeological information through survey, exca- vation, recording, and documentation. The theoretical questions which must now be addressed relate to the interpretation of this information, firstat an
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