BC Cook
THE Pacific contains thousands of sunken ships from every period in history. Until recently we had no way of doing anything about them, nor were many people interested in them. However, over the last one hundred years a couple of things have happened. The technology to reach the shipwrecks has developed, and people have started taking a great interest in learning from these sites.
Archaeology is the study of non-written artifacts in order to learn about the past. Archaeologists study pottery, architecture, and other relics so they can answer questions about lost civilizations. How did they live? What did they eat? Were they peaceful or violent?
If a civilization left written documents then historians lead the effort to reconstruct the past. Because of this division between artifacts and documents, archaeologists often focus their efforts on the distant past and historians concentrate on the more recent past.
For example, a historian will answer the question, “What was the Battle of Saipan like?” He does this by reading battle reports, memoirs of soldiers, interviewing survivors, and so on. He does not have to look at a grenade and wonder what its purpose was or who used it. Those answers can be found relatively easily.
However, an archaeologist would answer the question, “What happened to the civilization on Easter Island?” He would visit the island, inspect the massive statues there, take soil samples, study wind and ocean currents and so on. Since there are no written documents left over, and no one to interview, he must make guesses based on the physical evidence he or others have found. Sometimes these guesses are extremely accurate, sometimes they are remote.
Pacific Shipwrecks join the two professions together. Historians study where the ship came from, where it was going, what it was carrying and possibly where it sank. Archaeologists are needed to determine why the ship sank and to study the remains of the ship itself. Together they tell the story of the wreck and the civilization which sent the ship forth.
Marine archaeology is a relatively new field, dating back only a few decades. Most people working in the field originally searched in the Mediterranean Sea due to several factors. For one, there is an abundance of shipwrecks there. Also, many of the factors that make open-ocean archaeology hazardous (extreme depth, ocean currents, etc.) are not present there. Finally, they were mostly interested in European and Middle Eastern civilizations.
After developing their methodology, marine archaeologists are taking a closer look at the Pacific. Peoples as varied as Chinese, Chamorros and Polynesians all sailed in these waters. Their shipwrecks have much to teach us about their technology, their motives, and so on. We have reached the point where historians and archaeologists can team up to uncover the missing past and fill in the great gaps in our knowledge about the Pacific. This is an exciting time to work in this area of the world.
Dr. BC Cook taught history for 30 years and is a director and Pacific historian at Sealark Exploration (sealarkexploration.org). He currently lives in Hawaii.