Page 73 - Kennemerland VOC ship, 1664 - Published Reports

The International Journal of Nautical Archaeology and Underwater Exploration (1911),6.k.41-51 Historic wreck sites in Britain and their environments
Keith Muckelroy
InstituteofMaritimeArchaeology,St Andrews,Fife
1. Introduction
(Dumas, 1972: 32-33), stating that it is only in this last circumstance that coherent archaeolo- gical remains are likely to be found. Regarding rocky shores, which he assumes will generally slope gently down (ibid.: fig. 3), he writes that: ‘The sea smashes everything in shallow waters, and such scattered wreckage is of scant interest to the archaeologist’ (ibid.: 32). In fact, based
What an archaeologist finds when he sets spade
to earth depends to some extent upon the
methods he uses and the powers of personal
observation he brings to bear; but the possi-
bilities of any site are limited fundamentally
by what has survived the passage of time’.
(Clark, 1939: 74). This basic archaeological
maxim is certainly as true underwater as it is on this reasoning, a general doctrine has on land, and it is therefore appropriate to
devote some attention to those factors affect- ing the survival of archaeological materials on maritime sites. In a previous paper I have dis- cussed some general problems presented by this work (Muckelroy, 1976), and have suggested that the site’s environment is the one deter- minant external to the basic wreck system which must be investigated in any particular situation (ibid.: 281). In terms of that system (ibid.: fig. 6), its importance lies in its influence on the process of wrecking, the disintegration of perishables, and sea-bed movement. The cur- rent presentation seeks to bring together all the available information from recent under- water investigations in British waters, and so identify some of the main factors at work. As well as contributing to the understanding of underwater sites in general, it also highlights those environmental attributes which should be considered in any initial assessment of a newly found site.
emerged asserting that no important remains will be found in shallow water; for example, Miss Honor Frost has written: ‘ancient wrecks are necessarily in deepish water’ (Frost, 1962: 82), although she would no doubt wish to qualify that statement now in the light of her recent work (Frost, 1974, 1975). However, Dumas has made it clear that he recognizes that his general statements need not be directly applicable outside the Mediterranean (ibid.: 34). W. D. Nesteroff, writing in the same volume as Dumas (UNESCO, 1972) looked at the problem from the viewpoint of a geologist, and recog- nized that, even in the Mediterranean, there are intermediate types of sites, such as that at Spargi (Lamboglia, 1961). He identified the mitigating factors as a heavily fissured sea-bed, offshore islets, and protection by marine plants (Nesteroff, 1972: 176-7). But these cases were still seen as exceptions to the general rules, and it was in terms of this basic distinction between favourable and unfavourable conditions that early workers in British waters approached their sites. If there was a possibility that the vessel had settled onto a soft sandy or silty sub- strate in reasonably deep water, then there was
Like so much current theory in maritime
archaeology, most previous work on this sub-
ject has been founded on the experiences of
workers in the Mediterranean, the most thought-
ful and authoritative contributions being those
of the French underwater pioneer, Frederic
Dumas (especially Dumas, 1962, 1972). In salvage job. This attitude is still widespread, these discussions, M. Dumas draws a fundamen- despite the fact that work in the last decade has tal distinction between sandy shores, rocky shown that it represents an unrealistic and shores, and shores with submerged cliffs dangerous oversimplification.
a chance of a well-preserved wreck; if not the excavation could be relegated to the status of a
47