The primary mission of an archaeologist is to acquire data. This data is recorded, processed, and then examined multiple times in multiple ways. Findings are identified and classified, and then patterns within the data are hopefully discovered and interpreted in order to form hypotheses, theories, and conclusions about the past.

All of this would be meaningless if it could not be expressed in a meaningful way. With the help of oratory methods and practices, literary devices, as well as techniques commonly employed in theatre performance and public speaking, this paper intends to provide the audience with methods of presenting confidently and effectively.

The eight-man crew of the H.L. Hunley submarine all perished following the successful attack and sinking of the blockading ship USS Housatonic off the coast of Charleston, South Carolina in 1864. While much has been learned about this event, the identities of the crew have not been well understood. This paper discusses a collaborative project to understand the crew of H.L. Hunley through new digital techniques in the reconstruction of facial features. Using 3D scan data from the skeletal remains, 3D facial approximations are being developed that work within the Epic Games MetaHuman framework to create photorealistic likenesses that can be animated for many digital applications. In addition, this project hopes to use facial recognition to search currently available photo archives with specific individual facial approximations in consultation with Civil War Photo Sleuth to attempt to find unidentified photographic records and potential background histories for the crewmen of H.L. Hunley.

Africa is often acknowledged in western academic spheres as a challenging archaeological fieldwork destination due to logistical issues like minimal internet resources, language barriers, and unfamiliar legal and physical landscapes. However, these traits are by no means exclusive to the African continent, and logistical issues are no longer a good reason to ignore the vast potential of maritime archaeology in Africa. This paper explores archaeological practice in two seemingly different regions: Greenville area, Sinoe County, Liberia, and Gaspé, Quebec, Canada. Work in these regions has responded to and worked within environmental and climate constraints, engaged communities of diverse stakeholders, reduced Internet and data access, site destruction and topographical change, and worked within funding constraints to pursue new and exciting avenues of study. By emphasizing the commonalities in the constraints and opportunities of our archaeological efforts, we seek to underline the universality of these challenges and our responses to them.

The study of submerged aircraft is relatively new, and although traditional archaeological recording methods have been effective, the wrecking event and site formation of an aircraft falling from the sky is inherently different than that of a sinking ship. Just as different vessels from varying eras and nations necessitate specialized knowledge, so too do aircraft. Aircraft crash investigators use a variety of specialized techniques to study aircraft wreckage and crash sites to piece together why a plane crashed. Learning and applying those techniques may give archaeologists a better understanding of aircraft wrecking events, the pilots, and historical context in which they operated. This presentation aims to explore the usefulness and limitations of these investigatory techniques to archaeology by using the submerged wreckage of an F6F-3 Hellcat from the battle for Saipan as a case study.

The “Sea Scout Wreck” is a shipwreck of unknown type and origin, located in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Mallows Bay-Potomac River National Marine Sanctuary known as the Burning Basin. To understand more about the wreck, a site formation study was conducted from 2019 to 2022. This study used a combination of historical sources and archaeological evidence to produce a series of 3D models, using Computer-Aided Design (CAD) and photogrammetry, to map key stages of the vessel’s use-life. These models were used to theorize the site formation processes and verified that the wreck was a United States Army Air Force Aircraft Rescue Boat, purpose built in World War II to support long-range aircraft missions. While the origin of the vessel is still unknown, the study found that it had undergone several modifications in the decades between World War II and when it was abandoned in Mallows Bay.