U.S. flag An official website of the United States government.

dot gov icon Official websites use .gov

A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.

https icon Secure websites use HTTPS

A small lock or https:// means you’ve safely connected to a .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

What is Maritime Archaeology?


Transcript

JIM DELGADO:

My name’s Jim Delgado, and I’m a maritime, or underwater, archaeologist.

Maritime archaeology is the study, from what people leave behind, of how we as human beings have interacted with the oceans and with lakes and rivers. It goes back thousands of years, tens of thousands of years, as people harvested goods from the sea, learned how to fish, built the first canoes to cross the oceans, to today’s modern times when big massive ships ply the oceans carrying oil, large numbers of people, and in the 21st century, still transport 90% of the things that people buy and use by water.