[Aztlan] Underwater archaeology

[Ronald W. Webb]

Generally a "lurker" I'll put my 2 centavos in here...

About 10 years ago I was fortunate to be at a conference on 
underwater cultural partimony in Latin America, sponsored by 
IHAH, which was held in Tegucigalpa.  The conference was 
well attended by representatives from Argentina, Cuba, 
Mexico, Honduras, Jamaica, the USA Park Service, and some 
others I do not recall at the moment.

The impression I got then, and I suspect may still be the 
case but possibly slowly changing, was that a large part of 
the problem was that there were very few archaeologists 
trained in that sort of research and that it is much more 
expensive to undertake than traditional "land-based" 
archaeology.  The project I was associated with at the time, 
Proyecto Arqueologico de la Cuenca Lago Yojoa (George 
Hasemann, director) was interested in finding an underwater 
archaeology specialist as part of the research program but 
there were none to be readily found. I remember also that 
IHAH was considering send one of their own staff to the USA 
for training but I do not know how that ever worked out 
because of their very limited financial resources.

Obviously, as Dick Diehl and others note, there is certainly 
a need for this sort of research and not necessarily only at 
cenotes or coastal areas. I suppose what we need to do is to 
encourage young aspiring archaeologists to consider this 
sort of specialization in Mesoamerica and also to consider 
this sort of research when applying for grant monies.

Perhaps some of the more influential members of Aztlan can 
think of other ways to help promote this research.

Saludos,
RW

Ronald Webb
Director, Latin American Studies Center
416 Anderson Hall
Temple University
Philadelphia, PA 19122
Campus Phone: (215)204-7527