The INA

Résumé du livre

During the first three weeks of May, 1983, the site of La Isabela, Dominican Republic (America's first European town), was surveyed by a team of archaeologists from the Institute of Nautical Archaeology and Eastern Carolina University. The survey was sponsored by Morning Watch Research, Inc., which supplied logistical support for the team, and conducted under the auspices of an agreement between the Comisión de Rescate Arqueológico Submarino, Morning Watch Research, and INA. Remote-sensing instruments deployed during the underwater survey, a proton precession magnetometer and sub-bottom penetration sonar, revealed the presence of numerous anomalies on or beneath the bottom of the Bay of Isabela, the most promising of which was excavated. Eighty-five and a half man-days were spent excavating this anomaly using hand-operated induction dredges, but excavation was discontinued after the pit reached a depth of 3.5 meters without producing cultural material. Coring and sub-bottom penetrating sonar of fine sediments which should produce good preservation of organic materials such as ships' timbers, but which complicates the process of excavation. In addition to searching for remains of 15th-century shipwrecks in the Bay of Isabela, architectural remains on land visible without benefit of excavation were mapped, and base-line geological, meteorological and geographical information was compiled.