Timmy's visit to Mudd

Last week, after our exciting and productive weekend with the Cal Poly students at St. Luis Obisbo (which has been blogged about extensively already), Timmy made a visit Claremont and gave two talks. I attended both of his talks, and got two different perspectives of the Timmy's cool research in archaeology -- the first was more culturally and archaeologically slanted, geared towards students studying archaeology, whereas the second was geared towards the engineering students at Mudd. Both talks were fascinating, and the combination deepened my understanding of how engineering and archaeology can interact with one another.

In Timmy's first talk at Pitzer, he talked about the history of shipwrecks in the 1st century AD, how ships spot land by orthographic clouds, how islands are used as waypoints. He explained the common findings in ancient shipwreck and what they show about the Roman empire. He emphasized how the Mediterranean islands, such as Malta, played a crucial part as a waypoint to transferring goods from Rome to the rest of the empire, or the vice versa. This makes Malta a great spot for archaeological exploration!

Amphorae, a common find in shipwrecks in the Mediterranean. ROV still by Aurora Trust.
(http://www.machuproject.eu/img/ventotene01.jpg)

The talk in Mudd was about how engineering (specifically side-scan sonar) can help him achieve his goals in archaeology. It tied together the aspects of engineering and archaeology. Timmy emphasized the importance for an archaeologist of being comfortable with technology. One point Timmy emphasized a lot is the importance of being mindful of the various different disciplines of academia (and even industry) that an archeologist must consider when excavating underwater sites. Marine biologists may be interested in the data about boulders, rare marine life, and the active ecological systems within historical remains; geologists may be interested in the collection of sediment, change in salinity of water or oxygenation levels; the military may be interested in the techniques of sonar scanning and the method of detecting, or instance, underwater mines. 

Side-scan sonar of Amphorae by Aurora Trust.
(http://www.flickr.com/photos/auroratrust/)