00:00.00 Heather Two thirty Nine Welcome back to Crm Archeology Podcast episode two thirty nine and we are here with Bill Burns underwater your archaeologists extraordinaire. Um, we are going to start off with um. In this segment talking about the actual discovery of the endurance and then we're going to segue into under bartergar or and underwater archeology and c r m which I think a lot of people might be surprised. There really is a ah forum for that. There's. You know if you're an underwater archaeologist or you're somebody who's interested in underwater archeology and you are a c or um archeologist. There is a place for you. So um, Bill if you could just kind of give us a rundown of the efforts for this successful discovery and exactly you know how. 00:53.56 Bill Burns Sure, um, so the discovery was made by a group endurance 22 and the the real incredible part of this story I believe is just the the new technology that they've been utilizing that discovered a. 00:54.60 Heather How it happened. 01:12.33 Bill Burns Discovered the wreck so they took ah took an icebreaker ship out of I believe they sailed out of a cape town to the wattle sea to to look for the the endurance in the location of ah Wosley's last last coordinates and they utilize this. New type of underwater vehicle developed by soab. Actually they call it saber tooth now I found this especially fascinating because until recently, you basically when you're looking for resources underwater. You have a whole whole kit of remote sensing technology at your disposal. You know you could ah you have sight scan sonar which kind of shows you the relief of the the sea flooror but doesn't penetrate into the sea flooror at all and ah multi beam is it is the type of sonar as well to use it. And then you could use magnetomeers which ah you know they detect ah magnetic fluctuations so you could locate ah iron concretes or anything with a magnetic field with that or there's also sub bottom profiles which which do um. Ah, penetrate into the seaf floor but give you kind of cross section you you can't really view kind of wide wide areas with a sub bottom profile and then of course there's ah rvs which ah you know we're all familiar with from the Titanic and and movies and whatnot or you could put. Divers in the water which I do not envy anyone work in Antarctica like that. 02:50.43 Heather Oh my goodness I can't imagine how do you like? So I'm just curious this stop you for one second like when you were in the water like something that cold like what kind of I'm sure you have to have special suits and everything just to. 03:02.26 Bill Burns Gonna. 03:06.58 Heather Make sure and like how long can you stay underwater. 03:07.63 Bill Burns Sure I've never done ice ice divving before um but I know few people that have and ah it requires There's all sorts of fancy equipment. There's ah you know of course they're going to be fully drysued you. You wouldn't get into that kind of water in a wetsuit. 03:11.60 Heather Bright. 03:27.39 Bill Burns And you would have a lot of ah you know wallolies underneath but they also create these kind of high techch warmers that you could wear in your dry suit. Basically I think it's cir Hotut water inside and ah, you're you're gonna have your your face completely covered as well. 03:43.60 Heather Bright. 03:45.96 Bill Burns Um, often they have surface umbilical feeds appear to the the surface as well. So I mean the good side of is often you hear in these waters. You can see forever. The the visibility is just incredible, but who wants to stay in that water for too long. 03:50.51 Heather Okay. 03:58.56 Heather Right? right. 04:05.34 Bill Burns But um, so for this expedition they had these these saber tooths I mentioned before which are kind of like an ah rov in that it's controlled from the surface and has you know ah cameras and can send that as an abilical to the surface as well. So. Get the real-time data. But this ah Rv was also quickpped with I believe Sitescan Sonar so the rv itself was a bit of of remote sensing equipment. So at the same time as you're looking through the camera. It's scanning the area around. So you could see something way beyond the field of vision that might be an interest for you that you want to send the the Rv to and the figures that are saying are absolutely incredible that from from its tether point or from wherever you know it's being controlled from it can search for about a hundred miles Away which is absolutely mind boggling for it. It really is you know and send that data in real time back back to to to you to the operator. So this technology is brand Brand brand and brand new and honestly I I don't see how. 05:04.10 Heather Wow, That's crazy. 05:22.83 Bill Burns Endurance could have been found with any of the existing technology we had before before this. 05:30.25 Heather So were there. Um, was there an underwater archeologist with the crew or was this mainly um you know sometimes these discovery crews don't have underwater archaeologists. They're mainly you know scientists or um of various different fields but don't. Includ in Archaeologist did this 1 have 1. 05:50.56 Bill Burns Um, you know that's that's a very good question and I know what you mean I believe the crew Bob Ballard's crew for the Titanic didn't have any archeologists I think it was all oceanographers you know Bob Baller's an oceanographer and not an archaeologist. Um. 05:58.68 Heather Bright. 06:08.80 Bill Burns For for this expedition I am afraid to say I'm not actually aware but I would assume that they did have an archeologist on board. 06:14.88 Heather Okay, all right, you just holding on trying to suck everything out of this before we move on. Ah. 06:25.15 Bill Burns Yeah, sorry which I I known about the archeologists 1 06:28.18 Heather Ah, yeah, I'm just kind of looking over my notes to make sure though. Um, okay, all right? So so bill you know, Obviously you were just saying that there's there is some technology here that it's really, um, is so new and and this would not have happened. If if they didn't have you know this sob ah saber tooth technology and and a few other things. Um, what do you think you know as far as Underwater archeology or Underwater Discovery as shipwres wrecks is this going to revolutionize I mean it sounds like it is going to. And are there other ships that you know of that you know people have been really ah wanting to find that maybe that will be the next the next voyage. 07:15.11 Bill Burns Yeah, that's ah, that's a very cool question I do think it will actually revolutionize underwater archeology you like when any any kind of ah new piece equipment comes out. It takes some time to trickle down. You know this is obviously cutting edge and. 07:32.83 Heather Sure. 07:35.11 Bill Burns If it wasn't bought by. You know some um, a lot of funders for this this particular project. They wouldn't have it and and a lot of you know Crm companies and just a lot of ah groups are not going to have this technology for a long time. 07:49.93 Heather Right? right. 07:53.53 Bill Burns But you know as time goes on like like anything the cost will go down and people will find ways to kind of recreate it. You know? Um, so I think in time it really will have a huge impact in in Underwater archeology because survey really is the. 08:12.31 Heather Right? yep. 08:12.65 Bill Burns The greatest difficulty you know, underwater archeology. You know you get this fast area where you're searching either for something or just seeing if they things there or not. But um, you know in in the Arctic. It's very clear but in in most places you know you can't see more than five feet 08:30.19 Heather Right. 08:32.13 Bill Burns Andrew I'm sure you're very familiar with just ah, some of the incredible diving conditions that that where you have to go and where you don't see your hand in front of your face you know and you. 08:39.19 Andrew Kinkella Yes, and nobody thinks about that. They all think we go diving and we can see a hundred feet you know in all directions and it's just yeah yeah. 08:44.26 Heather Um I like it's the Bahamas looking at the tropical fish and coral. Yeah. 08:45.59 Bill Burns Um, yeah, whatever. 08:52.40 Andrew Kinkella People people will think that you know who don't know any better of course because they haven't done it. They'll think that of California you know and it's never if you have ten feet visibility you're like yes you know and this technology as we talk about it. It almost reminds me of like the lidar of the deep you know where it's really really great technology. 08:59.79 Bill Burns Um, you have. 09:00.60 Heather Yeah, yes, yeah. 09:06.55 Heather Yes, it really. 09:06.72 Bill Burns It happened. Um, he have exactly. 09:11.94 Heather Right? You know was I was thinking just like um the region that I work in a lot at Santa Barbara channel region mainly on on the mainland but you know there's a lot of talk about um sites being you know we know that the that you know at 1 point, the. 09:12.16 Andrew Kinkella If you can afford it. You know. 09:31.15 Heather The seas or the ocean was lower in this area and so there's likely would have been sites. Um, ah you know sites right? along the islands and all over the Santa Barbara channel region and just like you said surveying is so difficult um to do and actually. 09:40.80 Bill Burns Um, sure. 09:49.26 Heather Really cover an area that makes that makes any sense at all I mean if you're an academic archeologist. You know you're limited in your funds and if you're a C or I um archaeologist you're limited in what is required to get the job done and you know the client isn't interested in. 09:50.93 Bill Burns You. 10:06.11 Heather Doing you know these long-term expeditions of months and months but I could see how this would definitely especially when you were saying. There's like this one hundred mile ah reach where you could just actually if it's you know the cost goes down. You could have one ship out there and you'd have this. This saber tooth just combing the seafloor over time. It wouldn't take a whole lot of support other than I mean it. It's obviously going to cost some money but I definitely think that it could it. You know the what it could discover would be just incredible. 10:34.56 Bill Burns Um, yeah. 10:40.68 Bill Burns Sure and that's thing the the initial cost would be you huge once you have that you know it drop down cost to survey quite a bit because of the ground you covered so it's it would be really incredible. 10:44.95 Heather Sure. Yes, yep, Well they you know like the company that that we work for they do invest quite a bit in Technology. We're really fortunate to work for a company that does that and you know having. You know, a lot of times serum companies have to go out and rent equipment rather than and so that you know obviously increases their cost then we have our company has a full gpr setup and that allows us to where maybe other companies wouldn't even think about doing gpr. Um. And we know Gpr isn't successful in everything but it certainly is an awesome tool in some respects and so having that at our disposal to be able to use. Um, if we think that it would be a tool for an effective tool for that specific purpose or um, site or location. Um. I Could just see that you know once the once the cost does go down that this would be Yeah, this would be amazing tool having in the archeological Tubebox. Yeah. 11:48.85 Bill Burns Sure Yeah, just the option right. 11:52.40 Heather Yeah, So why don't we talk a little bit about um underwater archeology in Crm like I said a little lot of people are thinking that it's something's just you know, um, a few people in the country. Do it which really isn't true and it's starting to starting to increase. There's more universities that are. Offering underwater archeology classes and um it is definitely becoming more popular and especially with ah as we start working you know as a um as a sector and especially in the environmental sector um working on offshore. Um, projects Ah Underwater archeology is becoming more and more prevalent can you talk to us a little bit about that. 12:35.67 Bill Burns Sure absolutely and ah I want to add the a caveat that I'm myself I'm still learning too. You know I've I've been in archeology for almost twenty years now and just to trying to figure out the ins and outs and how to get how to do a right and how to get in on it. Is um, and itself a very tricky tricky seat to navigate if you'll you know, give me that pun exactly um, but um, ah sorry, let me just collect my thoughts for a second I'll start again in a move. Um. 12:58.52 Heather No pun intended. 13:14.11 Bill Burns Yes, okay, um, but 1 of the the tricks I always found in underwater archeology as opposed to terrestrial archaeology and ah Andrew you can ah help me out if if ah you have any but um. 13:27.28 Andrew Kinkella I shall. 13:33.14 Bill Burns I feel that there's it's very difficult to find an entry position in underwater archeology with terrestriary archaeology. You say you're just fresh out of school. You know you just got your bachelor's and you want to work in Crm then you you know you go work in the field. Kind of the traditional route for for most people you don't you don't start you know managing projects or writing reports you you go work in the field for underwater archeology field work doesn't require large crews of of people. Um. For any field work. It's usually just kind of a few experts. You know, either running remote sensing technology or or just a few divers in the water but you don't really have large large crews of ah of divers around doing survey. Um. So siji. It's usually a field that requires small groups of highly specialized people more than large groups of inexperienced people which makes ah makes it very difficult for someone just starting out exactly. 14:41.85 Heather Yeah, how do you get to that point right? yeah. 14:42.63 Andrew Kinkella yeah yeah I I would just totally agree in my experience and 1 thing that bill said just a moment ago where I'm like ah yes, Bill Burns is indeed the real deal is he said you know. 14:47.29 Bill Burns Around. 14:58.57 Andrew Kinkella Ah, in terms of how to do underwater archeology. He said I'm still learning and that doesn't mean bill still needs to learn how to dive it means that it's almost impossible to find some sort of manual on like how to run an underwater archeology project right? How to do the research design. It's it's. 15:01.31 Bill Burns Have had. 15:17.47 Andrew Kinkella An extremely small community in some ways and it's super varied. You know so there's there is no straightforward path in that world and also in terms of the crew I totally agree with Bill in terms of like I tell my students who are into underwater archeology man be a dirt archeologist first. Because most of the projects they'll have like the big dirt archeology and then they'll have like Bill said a little specialty group that maybe comes in for two weeks and does the underwater portion. 15:44.95 Bill Burns Yeah, that's a really good advice and like I like what you said too is just the field itself is so varied as well. Especially now in Crm you know, right now in the country of this big offshore energy boom going on where people are trying to you know in a wind turbines offshore quite a lot. 15:50.72 Andrew Kinkella M. 15:59.12 Andrew Kinkella Right. 16:04.45 Bill Burns So that's that's 1 aspect is the offshore stuff. But then you have all these insure projects as well. You know wharf maintenance coastline stuff seawalls with a climate change. You know seawall stuff is is becoming a lot more prevalent and then you have insurere stuff too. You know you have lakes you have reservoirs you have rivers. 16:08.77 Andrew Kinkella Um, yep. 16:10.28 Heather And. 16:23.10 Heather I Know no go ahead I was I was just gonna say I know we have you know we're we're starting to um, we have a few projects where they're doing sharks or sonar um in bays along the coast of of um so it's like to detect sharks. 16:23.80 Bill Burns Um, here in California oh sorry, go ahead. 16:33.79 Bill Burns You know. 16:40.65 Bill Burns Um, yeah, oh yeah. 16:42.67 Heather And the water so that's been some of our some of our work projects down in the Southern California area so yeah but it's. 16:46.84 Bill Burns Yeah, yeah, bays even something else you know and you know you wouldn't approach how you survey a bay the same way you would do something offshore and then you know you know me and Heather we live in California so there's all these reservoirs in this year in Nervada and they're always you know how do you make a reservoir you dam up. 16:52.22 Heather Okay, right. 17:01.10 Heather Yeah. 17:06.78 Bill Burns River and those are always going to be the most sensitive areas for native american sites. So let's say almost any reservoir in California probably has underwater sites in it. 17:10.30 Heather Right. 17:17.88 Heather So Andrew brought up a good point and he was saying there's like no manual like you know for for terrestrial archeology where you know we have the ohp. We have certain like standards that we work with um how to read how to write a research design. Maybe not how to but what. Aspects need to be included in research design. How do you go about that I'm sure you know there's some principle um ideas that are similar right? because you know we're archaeologists and we're looking at um, trying to find human activity or evidence of human activity and what does that say about us as humans and. You know there's those general thoughts but is there anything like um, anything like ah the o hp has for research design and I think you know what bill I'm going to let you think about that a little bit and we'll go into break and take this on the other side. 18:11.41 Bill Burns Okay, that's great.