Underwater Archaeology at BTS: A Decade of Innovation
After the hiatus imposed by Covid-19, underwater archaeologists are returning to the world’s oceans to pursue new research questions in ever-more challenging environments: logistical, environmental, and economic. Now more than ever, advancement in the frontiers of underwater archaeology will depend upon creating successful multidisciplinary partnerships with scientists and ocean engineers to develop unique responses to each challenge. International workshops such as BTS provide one of the few structured forums currently available to create such non-commercial research partnerships outside traditional home university and national networks. This update provides a summary and retrospect on the authors’ field projects that were made possible or at least greatly facilitated by technological developments and partnerships forged through BTS over the past decade. The focus is, however, on the decade ahead: the oceanographic tools for archaeological expeditions currently in development, and the new opportunities these plans represent for technological innovation and the marine sciences.