Ships and Shipwrecks of the Americas: A History Based on Underwater Archaeology

by George F. Bass (Editor)

Tells the development of watercraft in the Americas and Canada, drawing on the work of undersea archaeologists to recount every phase of American naval history, from Native American cultures to the destruction of the Arizona at Pearl Harbor

Genres: History, Archaeology

272 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1988

About the author

George Fletcher Bass is recognized as the father of underwater archaeology.

Bass was the director of the first archaeological expedition to entirely excavate an ancient shipwreck: Cape Gelidonva (1960). Since directing his first excavation, he has excavated shipwrecks of the Bronze Age, Classical Age, and the Byzantine. Bass is professor emeritus at Texas A&M University, where he held the George T. and Gladys H. Abell Chair in Nautical Archaeology. He holds an M.A. in Near Eastern Archaeology from The Johns Hopkins University and a Ph.D. in Classical Archaeology from the University of Pennsylvania.

In 1973 Bass founded the Institute of Nautical Archaeology (INA). INA has conducted some of the most important excavations of the twentieth century, and its findings throw new light into areas as diverse as the beginning of the free enterprise system, the dating of Homer's Odyssey, chronologies of Egyptian dynasties and Helladic cultures, and the histories of technology, economics, music, art and religion.