Author: Brian McNamara
McNamara, Brian, 2015 Out of exile: identifying The Storm Wreck, a colonial shipwreck off St. Augustine Florida; finding context through artifactual and archival research, Flinders University, College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences
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In 2009 the Lighthouse Archaeological Maritime Program (LAMP) conducted an offshore magnetometer survey of the coastal area of St. Augustine Florida. The specific area of interest was the location of St. Augustine’s historic inlet, which historically was afflicted by a deadly series of sandbars known as the ‘crazy banks’, a notorious ship trap in its day. A system using Marvel and D.C. comic book heroes as designators was used at the time to differentiate possible inshore and offshore targets within the survey’s project area. This system resulted in the name that the wreck site is now known by: Storm (Meide et al. 2011:104). The Storm Wreck has been the main concentration for LAMP fieldwork since 2009, and a plethora of artifactual material has been recovered each following field season that indicates the ship may be English in origin, and dating somewhere within the late colonial period of American history. The only other known shipwreck in northeast Florida dating to this time period is the British Industry of 1764 (Meide et al. 2011:104). The circumstance behind why a British ship would be wrecked outside a port city overwhelmingly known for its Spanish origins warrants further investigation.
Keywords: Lighthouse Archaeological Maritime Program, LAMP, St. Augustine, Florida, Storm Wreck, shipwreck, English-built, Late Colonial America
Subject: Archaeology thesis
Thesis type: Masters
Completed: 2015
School: College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences
Supervisor: Dr. Wendy van Duivenvoorde