CompTIA IT Fundamentals Study Guide (Exam FC0-U51)

This book considers the complex question of how, why, and where prehistoric occupation sites and artifacts on the European continental shelf have survived inundation by the postglacial rise of sea level, and how, why and where in other cases they have been destroyed. It is one of a pair of volumes, planned together, and cross-referenced. The systematic examination of known submerged prehistoric sites on the European continental shelf is provided in Book II (Fischer et al. 2016), and that volume considers data on over 2600 submerged prehistoric sites, the varying quantity, date and types of archaeological material found in different regions, and the implications for human exploitation of the continental shelf environment when it was dry land.

The seed of the idea for this volume was sown in January 2008, when Dimitris Sakellariou invited Nic Flemming to present a report on continental shelf prehistoric research to the Hellenic Centre for Marine Research in Athens. In the discussions afterwards the idea emerged of a European-scale project which would be submitted to the European Community Framework-7 grant-awarding system in Brussels, and we hoped to obtain several millions of euros for this work. The sixth World Archaeology Conference (WAC6) was held in Dublin in June 2008, and Dimitris attended that meeting. There was a session on seabed prehistoric research organized by Amanda Evans and Joe Flatman. Less than a month later, in July 2008, the third International Conference on Underwater Archaeology was held in London, and Dimitris and Nic Flemming planned a day's session that started with papers on research already conducted on seabed prehistoric sites, and then devoted half a day to planning an application for research funds to the European Commission. The session was attended by about 80 people, and we created an address contact list, and a core planning group of ten people called the “Deukalion Group”, after the hero of the Greek flood myth. At the same conference Joe Flatman and Amanda Evans started to edit a book illustrating examples of seabed prehistoric sites from all over the world (Evans et al. 2014), drawn from the papers presented at WAC6 and IKUWA3.

The Deukalion Group was chaired jointly by Nic Flemming and Dimitris Sakellariou and successive meetings were held at different European academic research venues during 2008 and 2009. In the event, it proved impractical to plan and manage an integrated research project which could qualify for research funding on the scale that we had originally intended, not least because of a changing emphasis in EU funding towards smaller-scale research projects with a strong policy-relevant theme. Accordingly, Geoff Bailey proposed that in order to perpetuate and expand the group and provide funds for continued planning meetings and exchange of ideas, an application should be submitted to the COST (Cooperation in Science and Technology) Office in Brussels to fund a four-year Action or research network. Geoff Bailey chaired special meetings of the Deukalion Group to prepare and submit a proposal, which was approved for funding in 2009, leading to the project known as SPLASHCOS, “Submerged Prehistoric Archaeology and Landscapes of the Continental Shelf”, (TD0902), which ran from 2009–2013, with a final conference in Szczecin, Poland in September 2013. The COST funding provided support for meetings, working groups dedicated to advancing thinking on particular themes, websites, publications, communications, data archives, training workshops, and field training schools, but not for the costs of new research projects. In the event, individual research groups working within SPLASHCOS were highly successful in raising financial support for fieldwork during the four years of the project.

Many individual reports and publications have been produced during the SPLASHCOS project. Agencies and research groups from 25 European countries participated, with over 100 individual researchers involved. There were 23 projects funded from various sources, both national and international, amounting to over €20 million in total. Numerous academic articles and reports were published in the refereed literature. The present volume is a concluding publication within the SPLASHCOS schedule, twinned with the companion volume edited by Fischer et al. (2016), representing the primary output, respectively, of Working Group 2 ‘Environmental Data and Reconstructions’, chaired by Jan Harff, and Working Group 1, ‘Archaeological Data and Interpretations’, chaired by Anders Fischer.

The Editors thank all the authors for their hard work. This book is not a collection of papers where the authors had free rein. They were required to write chapters which addressed a novel range of problems. The energy, commitment, and spirit shown by the authors, and their willingness to respond to the demands of editorial review, has been very encouraging and rewarding, and many of the ideas in this book are the result of the interactions between experts of many disciplines, nationalities and backgrounds at SPLASHCOS meetings. Special thanks are due to Kieran Westley, who acted as coordinator and sub-editor for the group of chapters on the European Northwest Shelf.

In the editing process, Nic Flemming has led the primary task of reviewing and editing the contributions, with substantial input of intellectual and scientific expertise and revision from Delminda Moura and Jan Harff. Tony Burgess played a critical role in coordinating and formatting the content of the chapters in all stages of preparing the manuscript and Geoff Bailey critically reviewed the final text to ensure internal consistency, explanation of technical terms and coordination with the archaeological work of the SPLASHCOS project.

We thank the COST Office for their financial and administrative support, and in particular the successive Science Officers who guided our work, Julia Stamm, Geny Piotti, Andreas Obermaier and Luule Mizera, and the COST Rapporteurs Daniela Koleva and Ipek Erzi who attended meetings and gave invaluable advice. We also thank the institutions that hosted the SPLASHCOS plenary meetings: March 2010, University of York, UK; October 2010, Rhodes, Greece, Hellenic Centre for Maritime Research; April 2011, Berlin, Germany, Museum für Asiatische Kunst; October 2011, Zadar, Croatia, University of Zadar; April 2012, Amersfoort, Netherlands, National Cultural Heritage Agency; September 2012, Rome, University of Rome “La Sapienza”; March 2013, Esbjerg, Denmark, University of Southern Denmark; September 2013, Szczecin, Poland, University of Szczecin. Finally, we thank Cynthianne DeBono Spiteri, who acted as Grant Holder and administrative secretary of SPLASHCOS, and who provided with unfailing patience and good humour the central coordination of the complex network of communications, paperwork and logistics required in the organization of meetings and progress reports.

Preface

References