Archaeologists unveil buried history with beach excavation
A shipwreck discovered two years ago on a beach in Hilton Head has sparked the interest of USC’s South Carolina Institute for Archaeology and Anthropology. A team of archaeologists and students made their way to Hilton Head last week, where they worked for three days to uncover the details of the shipwreck.
“We found out about this wreck from some local Sea Pines residents in 2010,” Ashley Deming, an underwater archaeologist with USC’s Maritime Research Division, said. “Immediately when I saw it I thought it would a great idea to bring students along to look into it.”
The students are participants in a Sport Diver Archaeology Management Program course that is offered annually through the College of Arts and Sciences. In the first part of the course, the students learned recording techniques and practiced on mock shipwrecks. After successful completion, students get to examine a real shipwreck.
“We try to pick shipwrecks that are going to be relatively straightforward for the students,” Deming said. “This was a brand new site and it was exciting because we were going to be learning and uncovering the shipwreck at the same time as the students.”
Author, retired law enforcement homicide investigator, consultant and diver Bruce Orr also helped with the investigation. Orr’s participation in the course stemmed from his hope to preserve valuable cultural artifacts as well as his desire to tangibly experience history.
“Preserving legends and their history has led to the preservation and recording of actual artifacts and relics of history,” Orr said in an email. “To read about history is one thing, but to actually touch it is quite another.”
Ship recording is a process in which archaeologists scientifically measure the shipwreck size and other features, such as artifacts aboard.
“We record them because they are exposed to elements and they are going to continue to deteriorate,” Deming said. “It is also important for us to record it because it is going to give us information about what was going on about the time it sank, who built it, where it was built, the time period in which it was built. We can learn a little more about history and even why it sank.”
During the three-day excavation, the students and archaeologists unveiled some of the secrets of the ship; however, there is still more work to be done.
“Right now we are still going over a lot of the analysis,” she said. “We’ve only really exposed about 10 feet of it because we didn’t want to excavate anymore than we’d be able to cover back up to protect the wreck. Based on the size and construction, we think that it is most likely an ocean-going vessel.”
Deming explained the importance of teaching divers how to recognize and record basic information about shipwrecks.
“Our main focus of the sport diver program is on educating the public about underwater archaeology and preserving our cultural heritage,” she said. “They can be our eyes and ears out in the field.”
Orr’s experience as an author has helped him realize the importance of historical preservation in the diving venture.
“As a writer I know that a story that is not written down will never survive, intact, past the storyteller’s existence,” Orr said. “Likewise the story this shipwreck and other sites have to tell will not survive unless they are recorded before time and the elements erase them from history.”