History as a discipline has expanded the list of tools and methodologies available to its practitioners. In addition to more refined sub fields such as social and labor history it has increasingly adopted new methodologies such as oral history and material culture studies. While still not in wide use by historians, archaeology has grown in acceptance as a means to obtain additional data that is not available through traditional documentary sources. Such information often speaks for those segments of the population that are often missing from the written record. The histories and activities of illiterate and often poor members of society were either deemed not worthy of study and or left few traces for historians to examine. Yet the physical record can tell their story or parts of it if researchers possess the knowledge and training in how to read it. Excavations of slave quarters in the Chesapeake, for instance, revealed the persistence of secret traditional African rituals in the eighteenth century. Symbolic items such as beads, crystals, and disks with pierced holes have been found hidden in walls and under floor boards.1 Underwater archaeology can also provide information not otherwise available. For example long held theories suggested the Spanish Armada’s defeat to the English was the result of a lack of shot. Underwater archaeological investigations, however, showed large quantities of shot were present on board and that defective cannons were more likely the cause.2

Historians such as those trained in East Carolina University's Program in Maritime Studies learn underwater archaeological field methods as well as traditional archival research. Graduates from the program, begun in the late 1970’s, have joined those from other disciplines and recorded hundreds if not thousands of sites in US waters alone. Their reports represent a wealth of information that can be used to educate the public, assist other researchers, and inform public leaders as to the importance and extent of our nations submerged cultural resources. This site proposes one step that can be taken to assist in all those efforts by creating a tool to harness the huge database of information that underwater archaeologists created that is just waiting to be tapped. This project represents one part of an existing website called the Museum of Underwater Archaeology (MUA). The following proposal will discuss how that tool fits into the MUA’s overall mission and how it can benefit historians and underwater archaeologists alike. In addition it will layout the structure of the site, its mechanics, and rationale.

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[1] Jon Butler, Becoming America The Revolution Before 1776 (Cambridge, MA, 2000), p 221.
[2] Colin Martin and Geoffrey Parker, The Spanish Armada (Manchester, 1988), pp190-194.