MARINE ARCHAEOLOGIST DUNCAN MATHEWSON TO LECTURE ON “GOLD, POTTERY AND BALLAST ROCK” – 30 YEARS OF ARCHAEOLOGY ON THE ATOCHA
Dr. Duncan Mathewson will lecture on what thirty years of archaeology on the Nuestra de Atocha has yielded on Tuesday, May 4 at 7 p.m. at the Mel Fisher Maritime Museum.
Dr. Mathewson, a marine archaeologist, will talk about how archaeology was used to extract information from different types of artifacts that helped to identify the vessel, as well as explain why the galleon sank and broke up. The “Deep Water Theory” will be described and explained how it was used in 1976 to predict what the main pile would look like and where the main pile was ten years before its discovery in 1986.
The lecture will walk listeners through the chronology of discoveries at the two 1622 shipwreck sites as technology increased our glimpse into that era.
A diving archaeological consultant on historic shipwreck sites with Mel Fisher Enterprises since 1973, Dr. Mathewson has engaged in educational research, consulting and teaching over the years for The Union Institute and University, Florida Keys Community College, the National Center for Shipwreck Research, Ltd., and Newfound Harbor Marine Institute on Big Pine Key. He is a past president and general editor of Seafarers Heritage Library Publishing Company in Key West. He is presently completing a new edition of a book on the Atocha.
The lecture is part of the Mel Fisher Maritime Museum’s Community of Visiting Scholars Series and is free and open to the public. Museum galleries at 200 Greene Street will be open at 6 p.m. for lecture attendees. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation.
The Mel Fisher Maritime Museum is an independent not-for-profit 501 c (3) nationally-accredited organization, dedicated to the exhibition, education, archaeology, preservation and research of our maritime history in the New World and is the most visited nonprofit history museum in the southeastern United States.
