Nautical Archaeology in Australia, the Indian Ocean and Asia

8.7 Conclusion

This chapter has covered in a relatively superficial way the involvement of Australians in some of the work carried out as part of a wider maritime archaeological research program. It is always interesting that the more one examines an archaeological research project, the more questions that appear. From the early work on the Batavia, the research lead into a number of new and exciting fields. We were able to learn more about the vessel and its context as an early vessel involved in the European trade expansion into the Far East. Examining just the European dimension, however, was only part of an attempt to understand the whole complexity of Asiatic trade, that the Europeans were, at that time, only minor players. Understanding of how European ships were built, lead to attempts to understand how Asiatic vessels were built. This is only just the beginning of what will be an ongoing, and probably an everlasting, research programme — to understand our past. Cicero wrote: “Not knowing what happened before you were born means being a child forever. For what is human life unless it is interwoven with the life of our ancestors, by the memory of ancient history? Moreover, recollecting antiquity, and providing examples from it, provides authority and credibility to one’s discourse, as well as enormous pleasure.”