In Archaeology Under Water (1966: 19), pioneer nautical archaeologist
George Bass pointed out how much easier it is to train someone who is
already an archaeologist to become a diver than to take trained divers
and teach them to do archaeology. While this is 'generally true, there
have also been occasions when well-trained and enthusiastic sport-divers
have been willing to accept the train- ing and discipline necessary to
conduct good archaeological science, becoming first-rate scholars in the
process. Dr. Donna Souza's book is the product of just such a
transition. It shows how a sport-diver and volunteer fieldworker can
proceed through a rigorous graduate program to achieve research results
that are convincing in their own right and point toward new directions
in the discipline as a whole. What is new in this book for maritime
archaeology? Perhaps the most obvious and important feature of Dr.
Souza's archaeological and historical analysis of the wreck at Pulaski
Reef and its contemporaries in the Dry Tortugas National Park, Florida,
is the way it serves as a means to a larger end---namely an
understanding of the social history of the transition from sail to steam
in late nineteenth century maritime commerce in America. The
relationship between changes in technology and culture is a classic
theme in anthropology, and this study extends t theme into the domain of
underwater archaeology.