US researchers find 18th-century British warships

[sean22]

It's the same all over. Locally we have a river with a long and interesting history of long boat, barge and steam boat traffic. The thing is if you find something interesting or historically significant that sunk or fell off a boat or dock, the local governments claim it 100% as their own. That removes any incentive for divers to report the find so that an investigation of the site and possible acheological excavation could be done (assuming funding could be found). And the reality is that as the river winds back and forth covering and uncovering artifacts, if divers do not find them, they will not be found.

Yes it is a shame.

 

[naui 15694]

Like I said in my post above, sport divers did find the first two, several years ago.
And it is quite likely that several of the others have been dived too. The problem is that the archeaological community here continues to malign sport divers in the local press as a bunch of looters. With that said, there isn't much incentive for people to report any new sites that they find. It's really too bad. Maybe someday the environment will change.

About 15 years ago a group of archeologists were calling for a ban on shipwreck diving in the Great Lakes. I went with a group of local divers to hear some of them speak at "Our World Underwater" in Chicago. One of them was speaking of a wreck in Lake Michigan (I think) and actually said "Fortunately" the wreck is being sucked down into the mud so divers will not be able to loot artifacts. In his mind it would be better to lose the entire wreck and all of its contents forever than for someone to recover a piece of china.

 

[sean22]

About 15 years ago a group of archeologists were calling for a ban on shipwreck diving in the Great Lakes. I went with a group of local divers to hear some of them speak at "Our World Underwater" in Chicago. One of them was speaking of a wreck in Lake Michigan (I think) and actually said "Fortunately" the wreck is being sucked down into the mud so divers will not be able to loot artifacts. In his mind it would be better to lose the entire wreck and all of its contents forever than for someone to recover a piece of china.

See what I mean. That kind of attitude is really going to make people want to share info isn't it? They are always whining about it belonging to the State,public, but they seem to forget that the only public that is going to see this stuff is divers. And if they remove divers (or at least create enough controversy so that it isn't worth the hassle) then they get to keep a "public" resource all to themselves. Sorry, I will get off my soapbox now.