Technique For Remote Location Of Underwater Sites

The goal of this research is to study the effectiveness of a technique which may result in the ability to detect some types of indigenous archaeological sites on landscapes that are now submerged due to sea-level rise during the Late Pleistocene and Holocene (i.e., following the last Ice Age). While methods exist that can non-invasively identify underwater historic archaeological sites (such as shipwrecks) efficiently and reliably, no such method exists for indigenous archaeological sites.

Thus, the indigenous archaeological record on continental shelves is mostly unknown and at potential risk of illegal looting, impact due to climate change, and offshore energy development. Remote detection and avoidance of such sites expedite comprehensive cultural resource surveys on submerged lands while simultaneously increasing the number of recorded (and thus, preserved) sites on continental shelves.

Despite many more millennia of indigenous use of submerged landscapes than that which is recorded during colonial seafaring times, indigenous sites are less frequently identified, less often studied, and thus underrepresented in the underwater archaeological record. The results of this project will attempt to ensure that future research on the continental shelves is more balanced.

The project will also provide hands-on training to a graduate and undergraduate student in underwater archaeology and geophysics.

The PI will lead a team of archaeologists to test a method which could remotely detect lithic (stone) artifacts, a hallmark of indigenous cultures worldwide. The primary research question being addressed is whether or not lithic artifacts produce an acoustic resonance that is observable in remote sensing data. This method relies on using a sub-bottom profiler, which emits low-frequency acoustic waves (~4-24kHz), to produce vibrations within lithic artifacts.

These vibrations may then be observed as wavy signatures in the water column of sub-bottom profiler data readouts. The test site for this project is Apalachee Bay, Florida, where a total of 23 indigenous sites will be scanned with a sub-bottom profiler, and the presence or absence of acoustic resonance features at each site will be recorded. Precise locations of each resonance feature will then be explored by divers to test for the presence or absence of lithic artifacts at each location.

The overall accuracy and effectiveness of the method will be determined through this field trial, and recommendations will be made based on these results to policy-makers and researchers. If successful, the method will facilitate the location and preservation of submerged indigenous sites during cultural resource management surveys and provide researchers with a new tool for understanding the role submerged landscapes played in the early hominid dispersal out of Africa, the adaptation of early peoples to marine resources, the peopling of Australia and the Americas, and environmental change during Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.