This week we continue our journey into Anguilla’s maritime heritage, looking at marine heritage and archaeology. It is a subject close to my heart and my reason for finding Anguilla five years ago. I was visiting Anguilla on a research trip toSt Kitts and Nevis in 2007. Sitting in the shade at Johnno’s, the seeds for an underwater project were sown. They would come to pass two years later, when I returned to Anguilla to lead the 2009 Anguilla Shipwreck Survey with a team of international divers and archaeologists.
I was not the first archaeologist interested inAnguilla’s shipwrecks. Alan Albright came to Anguilla in 1971 from the College of theVirgin Islandsto look for shipwrecks. The paper records that he was looking for shipwrecks for a museum. Unfortunately, he didn’t leave a record of his finds or a museum. 25 years later, the rediscovery of a large Spanish Nau, now identified as El Buen Consejo, encouraged a group of archaeologists from East Carolina University and the Maritime Archaeological and Historical Society (based in Maryland) to come to Anguilla. In 1996, they documented the site of the shipwreck and it soon became Anguilla’s first Underwater Archaeological Preserve.
It is illegal to dive or fish in the preserve without permission. Unfortunately, despite this law, treasure hunters and collectors have removed a significant amount of history from this and other sites inAnguilla’s waters. Archaeologists are like ancient detectives. We use artefacts as our evidence to understand and reconstruct what happened hundreds of years ago. Removing artefacts from a site, whether it is from simple curiosity or organized scavenging, is like robbing a crime site. Without evidence, we are unable to understand what happened or even identify the ship which was lost. Not only is it illegal, but it robs the whole island of its history.
In 2009 my team from the University of Southampton conducted a three-week field project, photographing and recording 9 historic shipwrecks (8 previously undocumented) and 11 spot finds including anchors, cannons and ships’ machinery. Finds included a ‘dump site’ with 9 cannon, 19th century sailing ships and a Taiwan fishing boat lost in 1975.
While some projects excavate materials, and conserve them for exhibit, our work was completely non-invasive. Without conservation facilities or a museum, Anguilla does not have the means to preserve these artefacts and so they were left in the sea. This is called in-situ preservation. While the sea is a destructive force, once artefacts have been encrusted in coral their deterioration slows or even stops. We photographed the artefacts as we found them and created a record describing their size, condition, orientation and possible identity. This last step was made by comparing the features’ size and type with the loss of known ships.
