Through-water communication: Australian maritime archaeology in a changing world

In 2002, Charlie Dortch published a piece in Australian Archaeology titled ‘Preliminary underwater survey for rock engravings and other sea floor sites in the Dampier Archipelago, Pilbara region, Western Australia’, in which he laid the foundations for the possibility of finding submerged sites: The investigative potential of underwater survey for submerged Aboriginal sites in the archipelago seems limited to petroglyphs, rock faces flaked in quarrying and perhaps indurated occupation deposits. Surge, storms, sedimentary infilling and marine conditions generally have probably obliterated or buried other kinds of sites (Dortch 2002:37).