Page 46 - Manual for Activities directed at the Underwater Cultural Heritage

© Max Planck Institut, Leipzig111. Part of a Neanderthal man's skull dredged up from
the North Sea and found in a containment of shellfish landed in the port of Yerseke, Netherlands. The find of a Neanderthal skull cap on the bottom of the North Sea in 2009 illustrates the wide variety of human traces and cultural heritage that can be encountered under water, but also the high scientific significance that human remains sometimes have. Such remains must however be treated with the due respect. In the image the specimen is mirrored and superimposed
on the La Chapelle-aux-Saints Neandertal skull with a maximum geometrical match.
sites call for attention and care in respect of other people’s feelings. More than other cultural heritage, these categories embody interpersonal human relations, in the present as much as in the past. The intrinsic quality of such respect also has a fundamentally political dimension.
Besides the submergence of landscapes in which people have been buried, there are other customs to be taken into account where the underwater cultural heritage is concerned. Some cultures have deliberately chosen the sea or rivers as repositories for their dead, while others have done so out of necessity.
Burial or sacrifice in moors has led to the discovery of ranges of bog bodies, preserved in the turf, whereas other ancient graves remain the subject of legend, like the grave of the Gothic king Alaric in the Busento river. The inclusion of entire ships in prestigious graves on land reflects other rites where the dead were sent out to sea in an otherwise unmanned ship.
On long voyages, before the invention of cold storage, there was little alternative but to surrender the deceased to the surrounding waves. Specific funerary rituals developed relating to these watery graves, as is described in the seamen’s lore and literature of those cultures for which a written record exists. One may suppose that the other, yet similar customs arose in the context of prehistoric and illiterate navigation. It is likely that evidence of it might one day turn up as underwater cultural heritage.
No less dramatic than intentional burial are sinking ships that incur a great loss of lives. Yet again, it is a recurrent theme in sea-related literature. Those who stayed behind and who are thus bereaved of their kith and kin are likely to have an awkward mourning process marked by uncertainty. Stay-behind partners are not only hard hit by uncertainty, but face taboos in their cultures, unless death can be ascertained. Feelings about what happened may survive for several generations, inspiring coastal and maritime populations with awe. Rule 5 calls for considering these feelings in any activity directed at underwater cultural heritage resulting from shipwreck.
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General Principles