Nautical Archaeological Society Introductory Course
Tuesday, July 3rd, 2007On a sunny Saturday at the beginning of June Joe, Morgan and I found ourselves in a Welsh classroom ready to learn about nautical archaeology and what the NAS actually do. There were only 6 of us on the course, 2 other divers and one woman who was doing an archaeology masters but didn’t dive.
In the morning we had two people talking to us about the NAS, what they do, why they do it and how they do it. Far from just being wreck geeks, they protect shipwrecks, run archaeological digs on tidal site which had been settled when the waterline was lower, survey and identify wrecks, bring up and preserve finds and wrecks and work on the conservation of wrecks which are still under water. Nautical archaeology is very different to dry land archaeology as the preserved articles are so different. Underwater it is mainly wood and other organic materials which are buried and survive, whereas on land it is the metal objects which are more likely to survive. There are also the huge constraints of having to work underwater, not only in terms of the relatively short times you can spend underwater but also practical problems like trying to dig holes in the sand underwater.
