Book Review - Fishing and Shipwreck Heritage: Marine Archaeology’s Greatest Threat? by Sean A. Kingsley
- 7 minutes ago
- 2 min read
Sean A. Kingsley. (2016). Fishing and Shipwreck Heritage: Marine Archaeology’s Greatest Threat? Bloomsbury Publishing.
Book review by Heba Fatima
Sean A. Kingsley is a marine archaeologist, historian and the Director of Wreck Watch International, a consulting firm that focuses on the protection of maritime heritage against threats across the globe. He has authored several books on underwater heritage, maritime trade and shipwrecks. Fishing and Shipwreck Heritage: Marine Archaeology’s Greatest Threat? published by Bloomsbury is part of the ‘Debates in Archaeology’ series. The purpose of the book, as Kingsley suggests in the preface, is to probe into bottom fishing and its impact on underwater cultural heritage, establishing the activity as the major cause of the destruction to shipwrecks.
Kingsley quotes and refutes Byron’s statement from Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage:
‘Man marks the earth with ruin – his control stops with the shore.’ In the developed world today, we have turned to the ocean for resources, nutrients or energy, which ultimately threatens marine life and cultural heritage alike. Kingsley argues that the damage to shipwrecks is irreversible; the ‘erosion of knowledge is permanent’ (106). The first two chapters view shipwrecks as time capsules and delineate the scale and distribution of the wrecks across oceans while exploring some of the major threats to such wrecks. Threats such as those from aggregate dredging, pipeline cutting and commercial archaeology undergo ‘varying degrees of control and mitigation’ (17) which is not the case with bottom fishing. Hence, bottom fishing is more damaging in comparison. It incorporates the usage of trawl nets and scallop dredges. Trawlers are known as the ‘bulldozers of the deep’ (45) as the gear that is used here is destructive to ‘seabed communities’ (54). It is interesting to note that Kingsley dedicates an entire chapter to the technologies used in bottom fishing in order to chart out the adverse effects of the activity. This is followed by case studies of actual shipwrecks that explain the manner and extent of devastation brought about by bottom fishing. Kingsley addresses the paradox that many shipwrecks or artefacts from the wrecks were discovered owing to fishing activities and argues that such discoveries ‘equate to shipwreck erosion and lost opportunities’ (86).
The subsequent chapter draws an analogy between the effects that ploughing on land has had on archaeological sites and the threats to shipwrecks and its implications for marine archaeology for the assessment of risks, their management and failure. Kingsley puts forth ways to mitigate the effects of bottom fishing in the concluding chapter. He suggests technological solutions and also emphasizes the formulation of a Red List of wrecks to prioritize and protect wrecks that are endangered by bottom fishing, among other measures.
Fishing and Shipwreck Heritage raises an awareness about the looming peril of bottom fishing that destroys the rich cultural heritage lying fathoms deep. Methodologically, it combines literature reviews, case studies, policy evaluation, etc and is an essential read for individuals with prior knowledge of industrial fishing as well as scholars of archaeology and cultural heritage studies.
Byline:
Heba Fatima, Lecturer in English, Birupa College (affiliated to Utkal University, Odisha).
Heba Fatima is currently posted as a lecturer in English at Birupa College, Odisha. Her areas of interest include popular culture, folklore and gender studies.