Taking to the Water: A summary of archaeological diving in England

Abstract

The seas around England contain an immense wealth of archaeological sites and remains. As a country that has experienced successive waves of settlement over many centuries and as a major mercantile, naval, industrial and imperial power, England's history and the experience of many of its inhabitants have been inextricably linked to its surrounding seas.The National Heritage Act (2002) enabled English Heritage (as the UK Government's statutory advisor for heritage in England) to assume responsibilities for maritime archaeology in English Territorial Waters, modifying the agency's functions to include securing the preservation of ancient monuments in, on or under the seabed and promoting the public's enjoyment, and advancing their knowledge of ancient monuments in, on or under the seabed. This coincided with English Heritage's initial policy on maritime archaeology that seeks to address both the professional framework and amateur involvement in the marine historic environment.Maritime archaeology comprises the study of the evidence of all past human activity related to the sea around our shores. This maritime resource includes prehistoric sites that were once land, other coastal features such as early fish-traps, submerged structures from defending the English coast in the World Wars and shipwrecks from all periods. Submerged prehistoric sites may be in the seabed deposits themselves, which are known to contain in situ Palaeolithic deposits or artefacts dating back at least a quarter of a million years to periods during the many cycles of Ice Age activity when large areas of our present seabed was dry land. Shore areas, located at or near the retreating coastline from the end of the Palaeolithic and throughout the next four to five thousand years, may also exist. These sites can contain evidence of settlement or early communities' use of natural resources such as artefacts and palaeo-environmental deposits.Due to the combination of historically high volumes of shipping traffic, a long history of seafaring and a high energy coast, the density of shipwreck remains in English territorial waters is likely to be amongst the highest in the world. The public archive of English Heritage, the National Monuments Record, contains over 40 000 records of wreck sites and seabed archaeological features, documentary references, marine casu-alties and fishermen'

A low‐cost, long‐running, open‐source stereo camera for tracking aquatic species and their behaviours

“…An optional microphone can be added to capture audio (Table 1; Figure 1a). Build guides and control codes can be found online (Dunkley et al, 2023). Each camera take ~3 h to assemble.…”

“…The rig uses a lightweight (~12 kg) flat design that can be quickly assembled (<1 h) and dismantled, facilitating transport between field sites/institutions (Table 1; Figure 1b, see Dunkley et al, 2023 for design files). Full rigs take ~20 h to prepare prior to first use (without outsourcing the hole drilling or 3D printing).…”

“…Each camera was controlled via its Raspberry Pi. Control codes are python based (and require basic coding experience) and can be modified to fit user requirements (see Dunkley et al, 2023). Cameras were designed to automatically start, and stop recording (in continuous 30‐min time and date stamped sequential chunks) at specified time points (e.g.…”

“…using FFMPEG). Camera code also includes a number of failsafes to restart the camera if an issue was detected or if the camera crashed (see Dunkley et al, 2023).…”

“…This means that for dome ports, the focus should be set much closer underwater than in air (She et al, 2019), with the distance depending on the focal length of the camera and the diameter of the dome. There is limited information on this and often a trial‐and‐error approach is required (see Dunkley et al, 2023 for links to guidance). Here, we focused the camera on an object 17 cm away from the camera sensor.…”