The Legal, Historical and Industrial Context of Underwater Heritage: Introduction

Peeters, Hans; Bailey, Geoff; Galanidou, Nena

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-37367-2_24

Cited by 3 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 9 publications

(10 reference statements)

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“…Although the national Historic Shipwrecks Act 1976 has been re-named to be more inclusive as the Underwater Cultural Heritage Act 2018, the update only automatically protects shipwrecks and sunken aircraft older than 75 years in Australian waters; however automatic protection does not extend to other categories of other underwater archaeological sites such as submerged Aboriginal sites. This is in contrast to those countries that have signed the 2001 UNESCO Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage (which protects all categories of UCH sites >100 years old), and member states of the European Union, which are required to include submerged landscape archaeology in environmental impact assessments in advance of offshore industrial development [72,73,74]. The findings presented in this article highlight that this gap in Australian legislation must be addressed.…”

Section: Plos Onementioning

confidence: 82%

“…The findings presented in this article highlight that this gap in Australian legislation must be addressed. Experience elsewhere shows that in the wake of such legislation, collaborative arrangements with offshore industries can flourish to mutual benefit, bringing substantial resources and industrial technology to bear on underwater archaeological and palaeoenvironmental investigations [74][75][76][77].…”

Section: Plos Onementioning

confidence: 99%

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Aboriginal artefacts on the continental shelf reveal ancient drowned cultural landscapes in northwest Australia

et al. 2020

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This article reports Australia's first confirmed ancient underwater archaeological sites from the continental shelf, located off the Murujuga coastline in northwestern Australia. Details on two underwater sites are reported: Cape Bruguieres, comprising > 260 recorded lithic artefacts at depths down to −2.4 m below sea level, and Flying Foam Passage where the find spot is associated with a submerged freshwater spring at −14 m. The sites were discovered through a purposeful research strategy designed to identify underwater targets, using an iterative process incorporating a variety of aerial and underwater remote sensing techniques and diver investigation within a predictive framework to map the submerged landscape within a depth range of 0-20 m. The condition and context of the lithic artefacts are analysed in order to unravel their depositional and taphonomic history and to corroborate their in situ position on a pre-inundation land surface, taking account of known geomorphological and climatic processes including cyclone activity that could have caused displacement and transportation from adjacent coasts. Geomorphological data and radiometric dates establish the chronological limits of the sites and demonstrate that they cannot be later than 7000 cal BP and 8500 cal BP respectively, based on the dates when they were finally submerged by sea-level rise. Comparison of underwater and onshore lithic assemblages shows differences that are consistent with this chronological interpretation. This article sets a foundation for the research strategies and technologies needed to identify archaeological targets at greater depth on the Australian continental shelf and elsewhere, building on the results presented. Emphasis is also placed on the need for legislation to better protect and manage underwater cultural heritage on the 2 million square kilometres of

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Section: Plos Onementioning

confidence: 82%

Section: Plos Onementioning

confidence: 99%

Aboriginal artefacts on the continental shelf reveal ancient drowned cultural landscapes in northwest Australia

et al. 2020

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“…Therefore the points are subsequently found along the beaches. The finds document the Early Holocene occupation of the drowned North Sea prehistoric landscape, named Doggerland [ 24 ], which stretched from the Netherlands to Great Britain, Denmark, and Norway [ 25 ]. The Doggerland materials is precious for the Netherlands, where most Palaeolithic and Mesolithic sites are buried many meters below the surface.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The dynamic lives of osseous points from Late Palaeolithic/Early Mesolithic Doggerland: A detailed functional study of barbed and unbarbed points from the Dutch North Sea

Aleo,

Kozowyk,

Baron

et al. 2023

PLoS ONE

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Osseous barbed and unbarbed points are commonly recovered from the Dutch North Sea and other Mesolithic sites of northern Europe. Interpreted as elements of projectile weaponry, barbed points are considered by archaeologists to be a technological innovation in the hunting equipment of hunter-gatherers. However, debate about their exact use and identification of the targeted prey species is still ongoing. To shed light on the function of these tools, we analysed a sample of 17 artefacts from the Netherlands with a multi-disciplinary approach encompassing morphometric, functional, and chemical analysis. 14C-AMS dating yielded the oldest date for a barbed point from the Dutch coast (⁓13000 cal. BP). The observation of microwear traces preserved on the tools provides solid evidence to interpret the function of barbed and unbarbed points. We show that there were two distinct tool categories. 1) Barbed points hafted with birch tar and animal or vegetal binding were likely projectile tips for terrestrial and aquatic hunting. We provide strong clues to support the link between small barbed points and fishing using wear traces. 2) Points without barbs served as perforators for animal hides. Our results highlight the importance of use-wear and residue analysis to reconstruct prehistoric hunting activities. The functional interpretation of projectile points must also rely on microwear traces and not merely on the association with faunal remains, historical sources, and ethnographic comparisons.

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A wet strawman: A response to Ward et al.

et al. 2022

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Ward et al. (2022) assert in their desktop study that we are "mistaken" in our interpretation of the artifacts at the Cape Bruguières Channel (CBC), Flying Foam Passage (FF), and Dolphin Island (DI) sites as evidence of cultural activity on a pre-inundation land surface (Benjamin et al., 2020 [CBC and FF]; Dortch et al., 2019 [DI]) and that we have failed to take account of local hydrodynamic processes that could have displaced artifacts and moved them over much greater distances than we thought possible. They argue two key points in support: (1) that "these sites are in the intertidal zone" (p. 783) and (2) that "many or all artefacts are likely to have been reworked" (p. 783). | SUPPORTING DATA SETSWard et al. have relied on a hydrodynamic model with a parent 2500 m grid and a smaller nested 500 m grid (Ward et al. supplementary information). From this, they have derived modeled current movements at peak ebb and flood tides and generated a range of hypotheses of possible artifact movement in response to these current flows. They do not model currents at the seabed nor provide a justification for their bed roughness value of 0.0002 m. The smaller 500 m grid is almost five times larger than the width of the CBC reported in Benjamin et al., so there is no way this model could accurately represent current speeds in CBC, yet they still incorporate a grid cell over this site and model the current speed. The DI site reported in Dortch et al. is located within a shallow embayment on the eastern side of the FF and is not even captured in their grid. Large reef areas across the northern archipelago (immediately adjacent to CBC) are also completely unsurveyed. Nevertheless, this area is incorporated into the grid mesh. In their supplementary information, they also refer to RPS data with measured cyclonic current speeds that exceed 2 m/s on the North West Shelf. They do not provide a location for this measurement. Given that the North West Shelf covers an area of over 200,000 km 2 with tidal ranges of more than 10 m in the north, we question how this value is even remotely relevant to the Murujuga sites. It is axiomatic in geoarchaeological studies of underwater archaeological sites that the local conditions most relevant to archaeological site formation and deformation processes can vary over distances of as little as 10 s or 100 s of meters. The model proposed by Ward et al. is too coarse to be useful in contradicting our LETTER TO THE EDITORS

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The Legal, Historical and Industrial Context of Underwater Heritage: Introduction

Cited by 3 publications

References 9 publications

Aboriginal artefacts on the continental shelf reveal ancient drowned cultural landscapes in northwest Australia

Aboriginal artefacts on the continental shelf reveal ancient drowned cultural landscapes in northwest Australia

The dynamic lives of osseous points from Late Palaeolithic/Early Mesolithic Doggerland: A detailed functional study of barbed and unbarbed points from the Dutch North Sea

A wet strawman: A response to Ward et al.

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