International Journal of Nautical Archaeology Webinar Series

The International Journal of Nautical Archaeology Webinar Series is a great way to hear from some of the worlds leading authors in nautical archaeology. They are broadcast live, online, are interactive, free to watch and even recorded to the NAS YouTube Channel so you can watch them again and again. 

The IJNA Webinar Series is supported by the Honor Frost Foundation

IJNA Webinar 12: 24th June 2026 - 17:00 (UK) / 18:00 (CET)

Unearthing the Material Realities: Excavations and Narratives of the Mauritian Slave Trade

Speaker: Dr Stefania Manfio, Independent Maritime Archaeologist 

Abstract: The island of Mauritius, situated strategically in the western Indian Ocean, possesses a rich legacy of underwater cultural heritage shaped by its intensive colonial and plantation history. This talk presents the results of the 2023 underwater excavation of the Victoire shipwreck off the island’s northwest coast, offering critical material evidence regarding its involvement in the Indian Ocean slave trade. Originally built as a French privateer in 1793, the ship was subsequently captured and converted into a fire vessel for the British Royal Navy, and was eventually returned to French commercial interests. 

The Victoire sank in 1804 under the command of Captain Genève while transporting enslaved individuals, livestock, and rice from Madagascar. When intercepted by a British naval squadron, the crew ran the ship aground and deliberately set it ablaze to avoid capture. The recovery and analysis of its specific artefacts, in particular a massive, unrecorded cargo of over 2,700 glassware fragments, directly challenge and expand official historical documents. By integrating these archaeological findings with archival records, this research provides a more nuanced understanding of the multifaceted commercial strategies that characterised the 18th- and 19th-century maritime slave trade. Ultimately, this initial investigation establishes a vital foundation for needed future research on this vessel.

Read Dr Manifio's article in the IJNA here
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10572414.2026.2637441

About the Speaker: Dr Stefania Manfio is an independent maritime archaeologist and researcher specialising in the integration of GIS, historical archaeology and maritime anthropology. She holds a PhD in Anthropology (Archaeology track) from Stanford University.

She collaborates with the Mauritius Marine Conservation Society and designed and coordinated the GIS platform documentation for regional shipwrecks. This work began under a 2017 National Geographic Grant project. Building directly upon this established spatial baseline, she became a core researcher and member of the joint group of the Mauritian Underwater Cultural Heritage (MUCH) project, a collaboration between Stanford University and the Government of Mauritius (CSMZAE). Within the MUCH framework, she oversees and co-directs surveys and field operations to train local stakeholders in underwater survey, technical excavation, and artefact cataloguing.

With over 15 years of underwater fieldwork experience, she has directed multiple international maritime archaeological missions. Notably, she led the 2023 underwater excavation of the slave ship Victoire (1804) and, with the SDSS, directed operations for the Battle of the Egadi Islands project (2025) in Sicily. She also maintains an active scientific collaboration with the Archéologie de la Piraterie project, conducting fieldwork in Madagascar.

Register here

IJNA Webinar 11 took place on the 8th December 2025 

From the eruption to the boat pavilion: the unique story of the Herculaneum boat

Speaker: Chiara Zazzaro, Professor of Maritime Archaeology at the Università di Napoli “L’Orientale”, Italy.

The Herculaneum boat is the first vessel ever found in the specific archaeological context of an eruption — that of 79 CE — which particularly affected the ancient cities of Herculaneum and Pompeii. The story of this boat is unique not only because of the exceptional circumstances of its discovery, but also because it constituted an important case study in the development of nautical archaeology, as the outer hull was carefully analysed by Richard Steffy at the time of its discovery in the 1980s.

The long conservation period of the boat prevented the completion of the study of the inner hull until 2018, when a team from the University of Naples L’Orientale resumed investigations with the aim of producing a digital reconstruction and carrying out a more in-depth analysis of the vessel. This new research provided further insight into the boat’s orientation and function.

An especially interesting methodological aspect of this study lies in the attention paid to the analysis of deformation, which made it possible to understand how the deposition of eruptive material affected the integrity of the wood and the original shape of the boat.

In support of the webinar, Free Open Access to Chiara's article The digital reconstruction of the Herculaneum boat (79 CE) can be found here

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10572414.2025.2493053

Speaker: Chiara Zazzaro

Chiara is Professor of Maritime Archaeology at the Università di Napoli “L’Orientale” (Italy), where she also completed her PhD. She has been conducting research in the fields of maritime archaeology and the ethnography of the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean for twenty-five years. Her research interests include ancient and traditional boats, ancient navigation and contacts, ports, and activities related to the maritime and underwater environment.

Chiara has carried out ethnographic research on traditional boats, boatbuilding traditions, and maritime communities in Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Sudan, and Indonesia.

Since 2001, she has been in charge of the study of ship timbers from the Pharaonic harbour of Mersa Gawasis (Egypt, Middle Kingdom). She coordinated research at the harbour of Adulis (Eritrea, 2nd c. BCE–7th c. CE) in 2013 and 2014, on the boat of Herculaneum (Italy, 79 CE) in 2018, and on the boat of Punjulharjo (Indonesia, 7th c. CE) in 2022.

She is currently Principal Investigator for underwater surveys at NEOM (Saudi Arabia) and in the Gulf of Naples (Italy), and she directs excavations at the Umluj shipwreck (Saudi Arabia, 18th c.) and the Lagoi shipwreck (Indonesia, 12th–13th c. CE). She is the author of numerous publications on these topics.

IJNA Webinar 10 took place on the 26th June 2025 at 18:30 (London) / 19:30 CET

ENDURE: Mapping the Future of Underwater Heritage – New Insights from Shipwreck Science in the North and Baltic Seas

Speaker: Dr Rory Quinn, Ulster University

The ENDURE project (European Research Council, 2022–2027) is redefining how we assess and preserve underwater cultural heritage. The project seeks to  develop new, science-based frameworks to evaluate the long-term preservation potential of historic shipwrecks. With over 3 million shipwrecks estimated globally, understanding how environmental and human factors affect their survival is critical for cultural heritage management, marine planning, and environmental risk assessment.

This presentation provided an overview of ENDURE's goals, methods, and early findings. Central to the project is the concept of "entropy"—how natural decay processes influence wreck preservation over time. The study highlights how integrating marine science, archaeology, and computational modelling can lead to new ways of protecting underwater sites sustainably.

A focus of the talk was the recent study of 549 historic wrecks in the North and Baltic Seas, using multibeam echosounder data and open-access environmental datasets. By combining remote sensing, open-data portals, and statistical modelling, researchers created predictive maps showing where wrecks are likely to be best preserved. Depth, salinity, bottom-fishing intensity, and time since sinking were identified as key factors. The southern Baltic and the Norwegian Trench were shown to have the highest preservation potential, while wrecks in shallow North Sea areas are more at risk.

These preliminary findings not only validate and expand on theories first proposed 45 years ago by Muckelroy, but also illustrate the power of modern digital tools in maritime archaeology. As ENDURE progresses, the project will refine these models and incorporate in-situ monitoring and materials decay studies—ultimately offering decision-makers better tools to protect our submerged cultural legacy.

Access the IJNA article for free here: Using Open-Data Portals, Remote Sensing and Computational Modelling to Investigate Historic Wreck Sites and Their Environments: 45 Years on from Muckelroy 

IJNA Webinar 9 - took place on the 12th December 2024 

A Century of Transformations in Emberá and Wounaan Boatbuilding in Panama: Anthropological and Sociological Perspectives

Speakers: Abner Alberda and Rita Ramos

Read their article in the IJNA here.

This presentation aimed to provide a historical analysis of indigenous boatbuilding among the Emberá and Wounaan communities along the Panama-Colombia border over the past century. The main goal is to understand the adaptive process of this activity over time. The study examines various boatbuilding practices documented across different communities, taking into account their technological needs and the specific demands of the ecosystems in which they live. It highlights the diversity of tree species used, considering the unique situation of each community and resource availability. The research is based on an extensive review of secondary sources and original ethnographic records, with a contemporary focus on nautical studies, collected during the 2021 and 2022 field seasons. The results of this research were recently published in the International Journal of Nautical Archaeology and in Revista Espiga from the Universidad Estatal a Distancia of Costa Rica.

Link to the IJNA article here: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10572414.2023.2299806

Abner Alberda is an anthropologist with a master’s degree in nautical and underwater archaeology. He is currently a PhD candidate in maritime history and archaeology at the University of Cádiz, where he researches indigenous boatbuilding and navigation in the Panamanian Pacific. He has taught courses on history, underwater archaeology, and anthropological theory at the University of Panama, where he also leads the Nautical and Underwater Archaeology Area, as well as at the Universidad del Valle de Guatemala. In addition, he is an associate researcher at the Coiba AIP Scientific Station and at the Research Center of the Faculty of Humanities.

Rita Ramos is an anthropologist and sociologist with a master’s degree in archaeology from the Department of History at the University of Panama, where she conducted research titled Record and Classification of Fishing Weirs in the Coiba Archipelago, Panama. She also holds a master’s in social sciences with an emphasis on theories and research methods. Currently, she is a researcher in the Nautical and Underwater Archaeology Area and a lecturer in the Department of Sociology at the University of Panama.

IJNA Webinar 8 was broadcast live on Friday 15th March 2024 

(Re) interpreting the Artefact Collection of the Nossa Senhora da Consolação Wreck (1608)

Speakers: Cezar Mahumane and Celso Simbine

Full article available Open Access here

Speakers

Cezar Mahumane is a Mozambican Maritime Archaeologist, he is a currently a PhD student at University of Pretoria (South Africa) and holds a Master´s in Maritime archaeology by the University of Cape Town (South Africa). He is a lecturer in Maritime archaeology in the Department of Archaeology and Anthropology at University Eduardo Mondlane and the Director of the Center of Archaeology, Research and Resource of Mozambique Island. Over the last few years, he has worked in different research programs in Mozambique Island, with emphasis on the Slave Wrecks Project (SWP); development of in situ preservation strategies for shipwrecks and training of local monitors in the preservation of the Maritime Heritage.  

Celso Simbine is a Mozambican Maritime Archaeologist, he is currently a PhD student at the University of Pretoria (South Africa) and holds an MSc in Maritime Archaeology from the University of Cape Town (South Africa). He is a lecturer assistant in Practical Archaeology and Museology in the Department of Archaeology and Anthropology at Eduardo Mondlane University. For over 7 years, he has been working in inter-tidal, ethnoarchaeological, underwater geophysical surveys and terrestrial archaeological excavations in the scope of Slave Wreck Project and Sarec-SIDA.

IJNA Webinar 7 took place on the 12th December 2023

Maritime Archaeology in the Far South - Searching for an 18th Century Shipwreck in Tierra del Fuego, Argentina

Speakers: Dr Dolores Elkin from the National Research Council (CONICET) Argentina and Michael Krivor, Recon Offshore, USA.

---------

Speakers

Dolores Elkin is an Argentinean archaeologist and a professional scientific diver who holds a research position at the country’s national research agency (CONICET). She graduated with a doctoral degree from the University of Buenos Aires in 1996, and since then has developed the first underwater archaeology programme in the country, based at the National Institute of Anthropology and Latin American Thought (INAPL). She is a professor at the University of Buenos Aires where she teaches a Seminar on Coastal and Underwater Archaeology. She is a member of ICUCH as well as the Scientific and Technical Advisory Body to the UNESCO 2001 Convention.

Michael C. Krivor, M.A., RPA (Registered Professional Archaeologist) is a co-founder and Principal of RECON Offshore. He has over 27 years’ experience in all aspects of Submerged Cultural Resource Management (SCRM) including business development/client relations, daily operations/scheduling, project management, proposal writing, budgeting, logistics, remote sensing survey, data analysis, diver investigations, report writing and production. Michael has successfully completed more than 150 maritime archaeology projects around the world including North America, the West Indies, South America, Africa, and throughout the Pacific.  His passion includes using his expertise in maritime archaeology to work in the most remote locations around the globe.

IJNA Webinar 6 took place on the 11th May 2023 

IJNA Webinar No.6: Between practicality of windward sailing and predicting the weather: The human factor in ancient sailing mobility

Speaker: David Gal, University of Haifa 

IJNA Webinar 5 took place on the 5th December 2022 

IJNA Webinar No.5: Co-creating Maritime Heritage Research in East Africa for Inclusive Growth

With Panellists: Prof. John P. Cooper,  Associate Professor, Maritime Archaeology & Arabic, Institute of Arab & Islamic Studies (IAIS), University of Exeter, UK and  Dr Elgidius B. Ichumbaki (Ichu), Senior Lecturer, Department of Archaeology & Heritage Studies, University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

This webinar discussed the recent IJNA article "Building a Ngalawa Double-Outrigger Logboat in Bagamoyo, Tanzania: A Craftsman at his Work".  The full article can be accessed here: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10572414.2021.2018243

IJNA Webinar 4 took place on Wednesday 13th May 2020 

IJNA Webinar No.4: Whose watery past is it? What can we learn from recent public nautical archaeology projects and what does the discipline gain from community-driven research?

The first World Archaeology conference in 1986 brought to the fore questions of who owns and who needs the past and ever since archaeologists have been balancing their own research agendas with and the various needs of the public, who generally fund them. In nautical archaeology we have, in many places, adopted the necessity to educate the diving public about the archaeological value of the UCH resource to prevent unconscious damage. There have also been some attempts to harness public manpower to record and monitor UCH in the world’s oceans coastlines. There is still much to learn from such projects, but what happens when the research agenda is led by the communities most affected by the archaeological remains?

Panel:

Dr Güzden Varinlioğlu is Associate Professor at the IUE, Department of Architecture, Izmir, Turkey and former President of, SAD Underwater Research Society. Her recent IJNA article is titled: ‘Assessing a Decade of Kaş Underwater Archaeopark’, which can be found here. 

Dr Stephen Wickler is a maritime archaeology researcher at the Arctic University Museum of Norway, Tromsø. He has published several articles with the IJNA, the latest of which is titled: ‘Iconic Arctic Shipwrecks, Archaeology, and Museum Narratives’ which can be found here.

Andy Viduka is Assistant Director of Maritime and Commonwealth Heritage for the Australian Government in Canberra, and a doctoral student at the University of New England at Armidale, New South Wales. His recent IJNA article is titled: ‘Going for the win‐win: including the public in underwater cultural heritage management through citizen science in Australia and New Zealand’, which can be found here.  >

>>>

IJNA Webinar 3 took place on Wednesday 2nd October 2019

IJNA Webinar No.3: Sewn Sailing Hypotheses: What can experimental reconstructions teach us about this ancient boatbuilding technique?

Sewn boats are important for the history of boatbuilding and seagoing. Although wood and fibre are less commonly found on land excavations, underwater, waterlogged, or desiccated conditions have provided archaeological evidence for sewn boats from the 3rd millennia BC, and the technique has been used up to the present day. Added to the growing assemblage of archaeological sewn-boat remains found around the world, written accounts, iconography, ethnography, and experimental archaeology have all been used to further explore this method of boatbuilding.

This discussion will focus on the value of experimental reconstructions using sewn techniques looking at Jewel of Muscat based on the 9th-century AD Belitung wreck, al‐Hariri Boat based in part on 13th-century illustrations, Beyden Seyad based on François‐Edmond Pâris 19th-century record of the sewn Omani fishing vessel, and Gyptis based on Jules-Verne 9, a 6th-century-BC boat excavated in the Greek port of Marseille.

Panellists:

Dr Lucy Blue

is a NAS Vice President and IJNA Advisory Editor, Honor Frost Foundation Archaeological Director and a lecturer in Centre for Maritime Archaeology at Southampton University. In 2015 she co-organized a workshop titled ‘Fibre and Wood: Sewn Boat Construction Techniques through Time’, at the German University of Technology, Oman, which has been published as an IJNA special section. Dr Blue will give us a brief introduction to sewn boat studies summarising her co-authored IJNA article:

Archaeological, Historical, and Ethnographic Approaches to the Study of Sewn Boats: past, present, and future

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1095-9270.12361

Dr Blue was also part of the team that built the Morgawr Bronze Age boat based on the Ferriby boats at the National Maritime Museum Falmouth in 2012-2013: Morgawr: an experimental Bronze Age‐type sewn‐plank craft based on the Ferriby boats (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1095-9270.12058)

Prof. Patrice Pomey

is emeritus Director of Research of the CNRS at the Centre Camille Jullian and Aix-Marseille University. He has studied ship and boat structure throughout a long and prolific career that started, at least under water, with the excavations of the Planier II and Madrague de Giens wrecks in the early 1970s.

He has recently co-authored three IJNA articles, the first with Dr Giulia Boetto discussing Ancient Mediterranean Sewn‐Boat Traditions, (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1095-9270.12337) and two articles with Dr Pierre Poveda about the reconstruction of Jules-Verne 9, a  6th-century-BC sewn boat excavated in the Greek port of Marseille: Gyptis: Sailing Replica of a 6th‐century‐BC Archaic Greek Sewn Boat (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1095-9270.12294) and in the Fibre and Wood collection Gyptis and the Archaic Greek Sewn‐boat Technique (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1095-9270.12368) 

Dr Eric Staples

is assistant professor at Zayed University in Abu Dhabi and his research revolves around the maritime history of Indian Ocean littoral societies, with a particular focus on shipbuilding, seafaring, and navigation including several experimental projects.

He co-organized the Fibre and Wood workshop and has published Sewn‐Plank Reconstructions of Oman: construction and documentation (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1095-9270.12370) looking at the Sohar, Jewel of Muscat, and al‐Hariri Boat projects.

Alessandro Ghidoni

is a doctoral student at Exeter University researching the sewn-plank ship timbers from the Islamic site of Al-Balid, a maritime archaeologist, and a photographer. He was part of the team that documented the Jewel of Muscat project and recently exhibited some his photographs.

At the Fibre and Wood workshop he presented an his work on Building Pâris’ Beden Seyad: a replica of the Omani 19th‐century sewn fishing vessel (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1095-9270.12366)

.

.

.

IJNA Webinar No.2: Is My Ship a Wreck? Exploring deposition variety

IJNA Webinar 2 took place on Wednesday 24th April 2019

When we think about nautical archaeology, our minds often jump to images of shipwrecks out to sea or along rocky coasts, as a result of misfortune or misadventure. But the remains that nautical archaeologists’ study in harbours, rivers, and estuaries have often been purposefully placed or abandoned, rather than arriving as a result of a catastrophe.

So other than wrecking at sea or sinking in battle, how does a ship become an archaeological deposit? Are there patterns in these rich assemblages of vessels that that can increase our knowledge of maritime activities and trade practices?

The webinar was hosted by the IJNA Editor, Miranda Richardson. Panel members included: 

Damian Robinson (Oxford Centre for Martime Archaeology)

‘The Depositional Contexts of the Ships from Thonis‐Heracleion, Egypt’

Damian Robinson

https://doi.org/10.1111/1095-9270.12321

Jean-Sebastien Guibert (University of the Antilles)

‘An Overview of Maritime Archaeological Research of the Colonial Period in the French Antilles’

Jean‐Sébastien Guibert, Max Guérout, Marc Guillaume, Annie Bolle, Fréderic Leroy, Laurence Serra

https://doi.org/10.1111/1095-9270.12336

Ellie Graham (Scape, University of St Andrews)

‘The Newshot Island Boat Graveyard: an assemblage of 19th‐century vessels on the Clyde’

Ellie Graham, Tom Dawson, Steve Liscoe, with contributions by Peter Dick

https://doi.org/10.1111/1095-9270.12332

Nathan Richards (East Carolina University)

‘The Meyer's Boatyard Vessel, Bermuda: the investigation of an M‐class gunboat built 1876’

Nathan T. Richards, Peter B. Campbell, Calvin Mires, Joseph C. Hoyt

https://doi.org/10.1111/1095-9270.12330

Our line-up of fascinating panelists explored these questions and discussed their research. Each of the panel members had recently published an article in the IJNA, which was made free to download before and after the webinar. The webinar is now available on our YouTube Channel to watch alongside the previous webinar. 

IJNA Webinar No.1: The Archaeology of World War Battleships

The first live IJNA Webinar took place on Wednesday 23rd January on "The Archaeology of World War Battleships".

A recording of the webinar can now be viewed below or on our YouTube Channel

The webinar was hosted by the IJNA Editor, Miranda Richardson and IJNA Advisory Editor, Dr Jun Kimura. Panel members were intended to be recent IJNA authors, Dr Innes McCartney, Kieran Hosty and Yumiko Nakanishi. Unfortunately Yumiko Nakanishi was unable to present at the last minute and so her presentation was kindly delivered by Dr Jun Kimura. The 100 viewers were able to ask questions of the panel members.

The remains of the First and Second World Wars at sea form a significant part of the ocean’s underwater cultural heritage. Battleship wrecks hold a particular position within this assemblage. As archaeological artefacts they can inform research on naval battles and the conduct of war, technological change, and are a material reflection of world political power dynamics, as well as holding material relating to the lives of those aboard. At the same time, they may be war graves, whether this is recognized in law or not, and, once their locations are identified, sites of commemoration with meaning for the descendants of those lost and the wider public on all sides of these conflicts. Beyond archaeological research, the management of these very particular shared heritage remains, and the conservation of metal wrecks in general holds specific challenges.

In this webinar the panel briefly presented their work with such wrecks (the articles are available Open Access here - https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/toc/10959270/2018/47/2, until the end of January 2019.

The IJNA Webinar Series is supported by the Honor Frost Foundation