WEBVTT
Kind: captions
Language: en

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One of the things that we’ve learned when
we look at shipwrecks in particular but other

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parts of archaeology is when something is
preserved, when it’s set aside, it’s almost

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like money that you put in the bank.

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But it’s money that you can’t make another
deposit to.

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Once you start taking it out, it’s gone
forever.

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That’s why as archaeologists, we’re very
careful to look and not touch, more often

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than not.

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In the time I’ve been an archaeologist,
I’ve seen the technology change so much

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that if I could go back and say, “Hold on!

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Don’t dig that ship up now!

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Let’s wait thirty years or forty years because
we’ll learn twice as much!”

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I would go back and have that conversation
with myself and others.

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But by the same token, too, what we also learn
is that these shipwrecks not only are repositories

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of the past, they’re people’s graves in
some cases.

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They’re also wonderful marine habitats,
full of life.

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So why should I as an archaeologist got to
the bottom and say, “OK, we’re gonna take

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all of this marine life off, we’re gonna
take away this home for all these fish, and

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we’re going to bring it to the surface,”
when it’s there sitting as an untouched

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museum, that meets all of those needs, or
that’s a beautiful place for divers to go

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and visit.

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That’s why we have sanctuaries.

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That’s why we set these areas aside.

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It’s not to just go and take.

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It’s to look, to observe, to appreciate,
and in a few cases, if it’s that important,

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to intervene, take maybe this or that.

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A doctor, when he operates, doesn’t take
everything out of you, he might take a little

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biopsy as a sample to learn what’s making
you sick.

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And so that’s how we approach it with shipwrecks.

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That’s how we approach it with most anything
in a marine sanctuary.

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They are sanctuaries, they’re conservation
areas, they’re sentinels that speak to how

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we are changing the oceans and how we’re
also working very hard to save the oceans

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and preserve what’s in them.

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So for the most part, we leave only bubbles
and take only photographs.