Collection

Computational Archaeology and Seafaring Theory

Submission status: Closed

Historically, seafaring has been regarded as an ephemeral activity that has been under-acknowledged as an area of study, with focus instead falling on material cultural aspects such as boat and ship technology or trade and exchange networks. The body of literature has covered topics like maritime travel, ocean resources, and the role of human-ocean interaction in past communities. Recent trends in scholarship have moved to acknowledge the importance of maritime cultural heritage to questions of sustainability and identity, especially for island and coastal communities grappling with climate change and loss of heritage. Advances in computational analysis have expanded the conversation of seafaring to include computer methods that redraw movement through maritime spaces. These methods provide a unique view of possible seafaring routes and marine environments of the near and distant past. By examining these zones of interaction, researchers can gain a better understanding of past sailing and settlement of islands, advancements in sailing technology or boat construction, and navigation skills and knowledge. Computational analysis allows addressing human-maritime interaction at a greater scale than traditional methods by incorporating large data sets, assessing many possible realities, using more accurate environmental data, increasing the geographic and temporal breadth of analysis, and facilitating comparison between case studies. The authors of this special issue form the Computational Archaeology and Seafaring Theory (CAST) community- a group of anthropological archaeologists, environmental scientists, and maritime practitioners who come together to study computational archaeology methods and seafaring theory. Through cutting-edge work, this global network of scholars and practitioners aims to integrate important lessons from ocean science and traditional environmental knowledge to serve communities better. This special issue aspires to be a resource for those looking to engage with computational modeling of human maritime mobility, whether getting started in this sub-field for the first time or looking to use computational analysis to complement existing research questions.

Editors

R. Helen Farr ,

R. Helen Farr

Helen Farr is an Associate Professor in the Centre for Maritime Archaeology at Southampton University, where she is currently the co-ordinator of Maritime Archaeology programmes. Her expertise and interests encompass a broad range of aspects of maritime culture and heritage and she is passionate about the protection of maritime cultural heritage holding the Chair of the UNESCO UNITWIN Network for Underwater Archaeology until last year. Her current ERC funded research focuses on early seafaring in deep time between Sunda and Sahul.
Justin Leidwanger ,

Justin Leidwanger

Justin Leidwanger is Associate Professor in Stanford University’s Department of Classics and, by courtesy, in the Oceans Department at its Doerr School of Sustainability, as well as Director of the Maritime Archaeology and Digital Heritage Lab (MEDLab) at the Stanford Archaeology Center. His research focuses on Mediterranean mobilities, port communities, and systems of exchange, interests he explores on the computer, in the lab, and in the field. He conducts community-based archaeology on ships, coastal landscapes, and the tangible and intangible heritage of historic and contemporary maritime life at the tip of southeast Sicily.
Katie Jarriel ,

Katie Jarriel

Katie Jarriel is a Clinical Assistant Professor in Purdue University's John Martinson Honors College since 2018. Her primary research models small-world community interactions in the Bronze Age Cyclades, Greece, in particular the entanglements of climate disaster, communities, technology, and the affordances of ancient seascapes. She collaborates with undergraduate researchers on a variety of projects related to computation and geospatial analysis, including the investigation of the materiality of active-learning classrooms and the development of a video game to teach young adults teamwork.
Emma Slayton &

Emma Slayton

Emma Slayton currently serves as the Data Curation, Visualization, and GIS Specialist at the Carnegie Mellon University Libraries. As an archaeologist, her research focuses on using computer-based analyses to identify possible locations of canoe routes between islands in the Lesser Antilles and the broader circum-Caribbean area in an attempt to retrace indigenous patterns of mobility and exchange from 2000 BC till AD 1600.
Marisa Borreggine

Marisa Borreggine

Postdoctoral Fellow, Harvard University Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences