USD Magazine, Winter 2003

Anthropology Professor Jerome Hall, one of the world's foremost nautical archaeologists, explores the wreck– age of a ship dating back to the first century A.D.

by Timothy McKernan J erome Hall thinks "Survivor" is funny. He's nor necessarily a fan of the reality– based television show - "I've seen it, mostly heard about it" - but to the USD archaeol– ogy professor, the televised concept of rough– ing it is anything bur authentic. Hall's regular forays to remote Caribbean islands make "Survivor" look more like "Gilligan's Island." He's been on expeditions where the menu was goat meat and rice for 100 days. And no cameraman ever snuck him a candy bar or a cold beer. Hall is a nautical archaeologist, and if you're nor familiar with the job - which entails recovering and studying artifacts from shipwrecks - forgive yourself. In a discipline that conjures images of millennia-old civiliza– tions, Hall's niche is roughly the same age as rock 'n' roll. His foray into the field started in the late 1970s, when the discipline was still in its infancy. As an ocean science master's student, Hall attended a talk about the new science by marine archaeologist Peter Throckmorton. Captivated by stories of sunken ships and buried treasure, Hall approached the lectur– er, inquiring about volunteer opportunities. After a brief talk, Throckmorton hired Hall as his assistant for a summer excavation of rhe so-called "Pipe Wreck" in the Caribbean. The ship, a contemporary of the Mayflower, rakes its moniker from its cargo, a shipment of pipes believed to be for Native Americans in the Hudson Valley. The assignment launched Hall on an odyssey that rook him around the world, including a stint at Texas A&M University, where he worked with George Bass, one of the original nautical archaeologists. "I have an incredible pedigree," Hall says. "I'll spend the rest of my career working to justify the incredible good fortune I had to study with the founding fathers of my disci– pline." Hall's passion for science is really second– ary in his work, something of a tool to satisfy his raging curiosity. His imagination is the engine rl1ar drives the excavations. And while he has scrubbed the silty bottom of the Mediterranean Sea for artifacts centuries

WITH THE CENTURIES

"This work, like all intellectual pursuits, does more than provide things for museum exhibits," he says. "Ir gives us a sense of where we have been as human beings, adds context to our lives and makes them richer and more full. " Being a science pioneer is nor without its humbling moments, however. On an excava– tion of a first-century wreck off rhe coast of Israel, Hall and his colleagues found an arti– fact they could not identify. After months of study, a graduate student postulated the item was a rowing bench off the vessel. "He built a scale model to show that it would fir, and we were all very excited about how brilliant we were," Hall says. "Then I showed a photo of the artifact to one of my USD classes and gave them 30 seconds to guess what it was," he laughs. "A young lady spoke up and said, 'I think it's a rowing bench.' Two Ph.D.s and a grad stu– dent scratch their heads for two years, and an undergraduate shall lead them!"

older than Moses, the Pipe Wreck continues to command most of his attention. The professor has pored over documents from the Durch West India Company, the Pipe Wreck's sponsor, looking for any shred of evidence to tell him why a ship headed for modern-day New York might find itself hun– dreds of miles to the south, within sight of the place where Columbus' Santa Maria sank. And for 100 days each summer, Hall and a group of volunteers spend hours in 12 feet of water, washing away the centuries and look– ing for buried treasure. Hall figures to have the site completely excavated in three years. "Imagine it," he says. "This vessel, on the cutting edge of technology in its rime, goes down hundreds of miles off course. How did it get there? " For most people, the answers to such ques– tions are not nearly as interesting as the latest "Survivor" tribal council. Bur Hall says the quest should appeal to our collective humanity.

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WINTER 2003