I think there is often a lot of confusion on whether or not something very
recent is an "archaeological site" or not, but a lot of this confusion
probably stems from what people determine is "of historical value".
Ultimately this is a judgement based upon a lot of things (time, money,
objective, etc.)
This question can be handled in a number of ways. The U.S.
Government defines a site as being greater than 50 years old. This of
course, while arbitrary, makes it easy to establish what a site should
consist of (the Titanic is thus a site).
However, it appears that the people who have difficulty with the Titanic
as an archaeological site are much more interested in defining which
artifacts of human existence are included as archaeological. For
example, several archaeologists in my office are heavily involved in the
Army's Central Identification Lab efforts to recover MIAs in Southeast
Asia. The kind of archaeology done here is very problem-based, where
an area is surveyed for plane crashes based upon written and local
informants' information, and then it is physically surveyed and
excavated. The objective: human remains (teeth, particularly), personal
identification items, or aircraft identification. This rapidly becomes like
looking for a needle in a haystack, but these archaeologists have pretty
good success anyhow.
Some researchers have apparently overlooked this as "not real
archaeology", and "having one's research goals defined for them".
However, I would submit that this is really as much archaeology as any
other form. We all operate (even with our own grants) under the
framework of time, money, and objective or research question.
The difference is that the Titanic, like a plane crash, is an event that took
place in essentially one historical moment. These events can probably
be viewed similarly to sites like Pompeii or Ceren, where the
archaeological materials are all synchronic (more or less) within the site.
The questions one might ask may be different. One probably is not so
interested in "what happened at this site", or "what kind of activity area
is this". Instead, one might be interested in naming the humans that lost
their lives, what cultures were on board, how many, etc.
The lack of consideration given to the Titanic and similar artifacts as
"archaeological" may lie less in the date of the event and more in the
nature of the materials. And people should ask themselves these
questions. Ultimately, I would imagine that the Titanic would be
recovered mostly using archaeological techniques (if possible given
depth, and other factors I am unaware of), and I do know that the MIA
program in Southeast Asia certainly uses archaeological techniques.
Ultimately, archaeology is about just that, a set of techniques.
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