This volume is the author’s third publication on the impact of fishing on maritime archaeology. Earlier versions have been met with some concern by the archaeological and fishing communities and generated notable debate, described here by the author as attempts by ‘landlubber heritage campaigners’ to ‘suppress and discredit’ his work (p xiv). The author works as a consultant for Odyssey Marine Exploration (a US salvor, specialising in shipwreck search, recovery and marketing) and acknowledges in this volume that fishing damage on sites can be used as a justification for the excavation of shipwreck sites (p xv).
Like the preceding texts, the volume is a fairly chaotic trawl of fishing methods and chance discoveries, a lot of which is anecdotal and well known. The text also wanders into discussions about dredging, marine development and treasure hunting.
Some of the material presented is questionable; there is limited differentiation between wrecks being fished, snagged by gear or damaged. Fishing can and does occur on sites for years with no obvious damage occurring. We are advised that the wreck of U-1208 is covered in fishing gear and shows extensive battle damage, but no mention is made of any damage caused by the gear (p 70), or that at least five UK protected wrecks have been disturbed by gear, although the source quoted (Firth et al Reference Firth, McAleese, Anderson, Smith and Woodcock2013, 90) states that it is not known if any actual damage occurred in four of these cases. We are also told that ‘The total volume of pre-WWI guns caught off UK waters since the 1970s … retained as garden attractions, sold or left to crumble is unquantifiable’ (p 69), but the UK Receiver of Wreck, to whom all such discoveries must be reported by law, can only recall one such event since 2001. One report every fifteen years would suggest that the number recovered since 1970 may be as low as three, which, even if the number is quadrupled to twelve to allow for suspected under-reporting by fishermen (p 97) and landing abroad, is many scales of difference from the 200 anecdotally claimed for Dutch waters (p 67).
The author seems unfamiliar with certain aspects of his subject; the absence of pottery on some sites is seen as disturbing, but we know that many ships (eg HMS Invincible (1747)) did not carry large quantities of ceramics, so their absence should be expected rather than concerning.
The nature of the evidence is the problem that currently faces marine archaeology. Fishing vessels undoubtedly have the capability to damage archaeological sites. However, the evidence for damage beyond mere snagging of sites is very limited, as this volume shows. What is needed is more scientific analysis of the impact of fishing gear on archaeology, which would allow us to understand and therefore mitigate these impacts. The author acknowledges this (p 62) and it has been done by other studies such as those of Brennan (Brennan et al Reference Brennan, Davis, Ballard, Trembanis, Vaughn, Krumholz, Delgado, Roman, Smart, Bell, Duman and DuVal2016), which has shown the worth of this approach to archaeology, and more generally by Firth (Firth et al Reference Firth, McAleese, Anderson, Smith and Woodcock2013). Indeed, the lack of scientific analysis is the most surprising aspect of this volume. By his own admission the author’s interest in the subject resulted from his role as a consultant assessing sites as part of the Odyssey Marine Exploration Atlas survey of the English Channel and South Western Approaches, a survey claiming to cover 4,725 sq miles of seabed and to have located 267 archaeological sites, 118 of which were associated with some form of shipping damage (p 14). Surely the data from the Atlas survey would be enough to present an unequivocal view of the subject? Yet we are shown only one image of a site from this project, a side scan image of the ‘Ivory Cargo’ site. While there is no doubt that the site has been damaged and is heavily fished, no mention is made of the salvage work conducted on the site by the French company Comex, who provided Odyssey with its position (Florida Middle District Court Case Number: 8:2006cv01685: DOC181.1 Exhibit C). It is impossible, therefore, to differentiate between the damage caused to the site by salvage and that by fishing, making this particular site an odd choice to use as an example when we are told there are another 117 from which to pick.
The book presents a global view of historical discoveries by the fishing industry of archaeological material and sites and explains some of the damage that can occur. However, it presents a lot of anecdotal evidence and fails to provide any scientific understanding of these impacts, despite the apparently huge dataset it has to hand. Readers would be better directed to the bibliography than the text of this volume.
