Fun in Hawaii

[ScubaFinder]

My apologies, I removed Gary's letter out of professional courtesy as this is an ongoing case with active litigation. Keep an eye out for this one though, it should be interesting. :-)

 

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[Shawmen]

Kudos to Gary...It's about time somebody else did the DD and grew a set of balls to combat the academia Socialist types!! Admirality Law does have some powerfull trumps incorporated in it if you don't succomb prematurely to the snot-nosed desk jockeys. It would be nice if everyone could work together in the maritime recovery arena, but that is simply NOT the way it is nowadays...Academia and the State Governments simply want to stick their noses tooooooooo far up the azzes of those doing the actual work and putting the cash on the line! Florida desk jockeys would crap a Pringles can if they knew what is laying just beyond the 3-mile line off the Tango Charlie...too bad,so sad,it's in federal waters...no soup for you! With that being said, Spain can kiss it too...Can't play nice in the sandbox then,well,it's of unknown origin.

Good Hunting to all...
Santini

 

[comfortably numb]

I'm excited to see how this will turn out, Hopefully it may turn the tide.

 

[aquanut]

Sadly ScubaFinder, the State has made it impossible for us treasure hunters to work with them. It's their loss. If Gary sounds a bit arrogant and angry in his position, I think it is brought about by the arrogance of the academic community. As they say, "Paybacks are Hell!" I hope he prevails with prejudice!
Aquanut

BTW, Welcome Back Santini.

 

[ScubaFinder]

Don't get me wrong, I hope he prevails too. I just wish it didn't have to be that way. At the end of the day, I don't have a degree in archaeology so I must remain on the private sector side of the issue. I have 10 times more hours doing underwater archaeology than 99% of the guys who make the laws governing whether or not I can continue my work. In the last 6 months I have published 4 archaeological reports, yet I still cannot call myself an archaeologist by their standards. We have to work in other countries to accomplish our goals when there are incredible historic shipwrecks right in our own backyard.

I believe it is irresponsible of the academic community to NOT sell redundant artifacts to fund further excavation. We just keep stacking it up in vaults and waiting for more tax-payer dollars so we can go spend 10 more years excavating the next wreck. Then we'll spend more tax-payer dollars to stack up the artifacts from that wreck, and even more dollars to maintain and secure the collection. The academic community is running out of space to store the artifacts, doesn't have the funding to maintain and secure their collections and doesn't have the money to do any new work. I believe in keeping collections together, and in keeing important and unique artifacts but at some point simple logic HAS to prevail, and when we find 100,000 identical trade beads in a river bed....SELL some so we can fund some more WORK.

 

[Salvor6]

Ancient Native American Indian Artifacts, Relics and Arrowheads - Indian Beads Page

 

[Oceanic500]

As someone with a degree in archaeology (albeit terrestrial) I have a few things to say that will hopefully add another dimension to this conversation. First, I am not a maritime archaeologist and am not familiar with the legal underpinnings of historic properties under maritime jurisdiction. I have no doubt that you are all more versed than I, but I would like to imagine that we are all capable of viewing a situation from outside a strictly legal framework employed to allow for the greatest amount of monetary gain. In the case of Mr. Crothers, if the wreck is indeed a galleon then it would completely alter what we know about western interactions with Hawaii and would push back the date of initial European contact possibly centuries earlier. This is of no small significance and should be of interest to everyone.

Unquestionably, the most critical part of an archaeological endeavor occurs during the acquisition of data in the field. If the correct methods are not used and the information not recorded in a reliable fashion it cannot be utilized for credible analyses. Once material remains are removed from their primary context, the archaeological record is destroyed forever. There is no reset button to go back and try again. This is why it is crucial to make sure work is done properly, particularly in cases such as that in Hawaii. Now I am not familiar with the methodologies employed by maritime archaeologists and I do not know how much it differs from those used by commercial salvors, but on land 'pot hunters' are responsible for a tremendous amount of damage to the archaeology in the ground. I apologize if my comparison is inaccurate, but I do see parallels.

To be honest, I am typically not concerned with the activities of salvors, as it rarely affects the kinds of archaeology (or time periods and locations) that interest me, but this case is directly relevant to the work that I do. Mr. Crothers comes off in his letter as a delusional self-aggrandizing paranoid lunatic. His pompous attitude is greater cause for disdain than any salvaging he seeks to do. Personally, I don't really care as much about the ultimate fate of the artifacts recovered as I do about how they are recovered. I would like to think that there is a way in which both sides could come to an agreement and find an approach to make that happen while keeping everyone happy (as much as possible).

 

[ScubaFinder]

I don't disagree with your assesment of pot hunters, and there are certainly correlations that can be made to some past and even present shipwreck salvors. My problem has been with the broader generalization of all for-profit salvage companies based on the worst works of the worst few. Lets be honest, if we judged all archaeologists on the ethics of the worst 1% of them, they wouldn't look so good either. I believe that is called stereo-typing and its been going on in the shipwreck community for decades. We as a group are not bad people and we don't have bad intentions. I wouldn't sleep well if I felt that I hadpersonally damaged or destroyed an important part of the archaeological record. The only way you and I differ is that after I properly record, collect and conserve the artifacts (a VERY expensive proposition) I believe that when you find and record excesses of a particular artifact (50,000 identical silver coins), it is OK to monetize a portion of that material as long as it funds further research, exploration, conservation, whatever. I don't think that is such an absurd proposition.

To be fair, it is a very small percentage of archaeologists that maintain the narrow-minded views I describe. An unfortunate truth is that these are the ones lobbying the law-makers for an end to private sector salvage. The scientific/academic end of the meteorite community once considered outlawing private meteorite hunting. When they looked into the findings, they realized that more than 80% of the specimens they had to study were found by individual meteorite hunters. To me, a serious scientist would jump at the chance to have an army of well equiped, well funded private groups out collecting data for me. Even if you loose some material and get a few errors in your data, its better than never having the funding or the man power to go and discover the site.

I only posted Gary's email to find out if anyone here knew who he was....the fact that his email (from a sealed case according to Gary) is circulating though the archaeological community is interesting.

 

[Bum Luck]

In the last 6 months I have published 4 archaeological reports, yet I still cannot call myself an archaeologist by their standards.

That nicely sums it up.

I've worked with some, understand how their academic community works, and I'll say that in general, academia makes progress one funeral at a time. It's slower than that in archaeology.

I think that Mel Fisher's salvage of the Atocha is a nice example of how it worked, except for the State part. You can see Mel's exhibit; where's the state's?