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This chapter focuses on bog bodies. It discusses their distribution; types (real, paper, and fabricated); number and age of bog bodies; research into the European bog bodies; and the current understanding and the future of bog body research. Common practice in bog-body research so far has been to list all the known bog bodies from all over Europe and underline what they have in common, which sometimes leads to a biased picture of the situation. It is high time for researchers to regard the bog bodies in their regional landscape and cultural contexts, and to start considering them in relation to other ‘extraordinary findspots’ of human remains such as buildings, farm boundaries, and stream valleys.

This chapter discusses geophysical techniques for detecting organic materials within peat deposits. It focuses on the spectral induced polarization method and ground-penetrating radar, which have yielded the most encouraging results in waterlogged sediments. These methods have been applied to identify wooden trackways in peat layers at different archaeological sites in Germany. The physical fundamentals of the two methods are briefly described, and case histories of the successful application are summarized.

Maritime archaeology has given rise to quite a few issues. The meaning of heritage for the society has undergone changes, and thus, ethical discussion has evolved, which is discussed in this article. Archaeological discourses include a historical review that is helpful in understanding how insights have developed. Archaeology is not uniform and archaeological heritage has been studied through different approaches and thinking. An item attributed heritage value in one part of the continent may not be regarded as the same in another part of the continent. For maritime archaeology, this national bias has been influential in several ways and it continues to be so. The principle that “heritage” is a public matter is quite central in the developing ethics of the archaeological profession. This article finally discusses the international development of a body of maritime law specifically concerning underwater cultural heritage.

The Red Sea has been always an important highway for maritime trade and shipping. The prevailing winds greatly influence the way that ancient seafarers navigate these waters, contributing to the traditional view that the Red Sea served as a barrier to maritime communications. Despite this, frequent maritime traffic, and remarkably few shipwrecks have been discovered in this region. This article addresses limited shipwreck evidence and draws on a range of diverse evidence, in order to provide some insight into the maritime archaeological record of the Red Sea. It summarizes the available maritime archaeological records regarding the Red Sea. However, there is much more to be discovered and learned about this region as it has stimulated maritime contact, communication and trade along the waterway, and opening channels to the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea.

Perhaps no civilization in history is as associated with the sea as the Phoenicians, whose ships and seafaring ability allowed them to travel, trade, and establish colonies across the Mediterranean. Search and survey operations in the Mediterranean have resulted in the discovery of a limited number of Canaanite, Phoenician, and Punic shipwrecks, which have been found in both deep and shallow water. These assemblages provide valuable evidence of this culture’s critical maritime component, improving our knowledge and understanding of Phoenician and Punic seafaring, while also helping us better understand the written accounts we do possess about these mariners and their activities. Within the last decade in particular, the excavation of the shipwreck at Bajo de la Campana (Spain) has shed new light on Phoenician seafaring and ship construction, while the discovery of the Xlendi Gozo wreck (Malta) has provided new evidence for Phoenician activity in the central Mediterranean. Survey and excavation off the northwest coast of Sicily, in turn, has provided a remarkable material counterpart to the textual evidence for the events at the end of the First Punic War. When combined with the deep-water wrecks off the coast of Ashkelon and the smaller, locally oriented wrecks off the coast of Mazarrón (Spain), a more coherent—albeit still very incomplete—picture of Phoenician and Punic activity begins to take shape.

Archaeological survey is fundamental to archaeological data collection. Underwater archaeology is developing and maturing as a discipline. The levels of technology available for investigations are variable depending on the objectives of surveys. Prior to entering the field, it is essential to do a complete desktop research, an in-office examination of available literature, and to develop a survey plan. This article describes different methods and the tools used for probing, which are used for examining subsurface features or defining the extent of a site. Remote sensing is an effective method to search for cultural material in a marine context. Once a general survey has located acoustic targets, magnetic anomalies, or other areas of interest, a predisturbance site survey of the targets may be conducted. Accurate positioning during a predisturbance investigation is critical. With an area survey complete or a predisturbance survey conducted, the next step in the archaeological process is excavation.

Studies on Middle and Late Pleistocene hominin dietary adaptations have argued that aquatic foods played a key role during this evolutionary process. This chapter presents a summary account on the use and significance of marine resources, particularly shellfish, for early modern humans in southern Africa during oxygen isotope stages (OIS) 6–4. The methods used to identify, quantify, and compare archaeomalacological assemblages in South Africa and beyond, their drawbacks, as well as palaeoenvironmental, taphonomical and foraging considerations necessary to evaluate these data are discussed. The significance of diet broadening in the context of emerging modern humans about 160 ka and their exit out of Africa ~80–60 ka is reflected upon in the light of coastal adaptations by other early hominins groups elsewhere, such as Neanderthals in the Mediterranean Basin. The implications of longer residential permanence and higher population densities generally possible near productive shorelines are also examined.

This article looks at the prehistory of the North Sea. The North Sea has a long human history and is geographically extensive. This article gives information about artifacts excavated from coastal exposures, dating back to 700,000 years. It describes the model used to study submerged prehistoric contexts in the North Sea. Marine aggregates play a central role in the investigation of submerged prehistory. The submerged river gravels are considered to be of high potential for prehistoric archaeology, which establishes a direct relationship between submerged prehistory and marine aggregate dredging. This article also explains the theory of Doggerland and its conception. Despite a small number of archaeological sites in the North Sea, recent technological developments have had a big effect with respect to data quality, position-fixing, processing, and presentation.

This article describes shipwrecks from the World Wars. For marine archaeology, there are numerous archaeological sites to dive on, research, and analyze. World War II in Europe resulted in staggering losses of shipping and lives. There were changes in naval warfare that resulted from the technological development of weapons capable of sinking ships. This article highlights archaeological research on world war shipwrecks, which focuses on identifying the locations of wrecks and the causes of sinking. The U.S. Navy's wrecks are distributed in every major body of water and represent many questions formulated in World War archaeology. Furthermore, this article highlights the fact that the shipwrecks of the World Wars pose environmental concerns. Shipwreck finds from the World Wars will undoubtedly continue until all the larger ships and notable aircraft have been found, for such is the fascination with discovery and the history of the lost ships and aircraft of those conflicts.

This chapter, which describes the most commonly used acoustic techniques for the detection and characterization of underwater archaeological material, considers the effectiveness of these techniques and their potential for wetland research as well as the challenges and issues that could be encountered in such environments. These techniques include Real Time Kinematic-GPS, single-beam echo sounders and sub-bottom profilers, side-scan sonars and swath bathymetry sonars, and the magnetometer and bathymetric LiDAR (Light Detecting and Ranging).