Between April 29 and May 7, members of the project “Archaeological research and enhancement of maritime activities in Norpatagonia, 1779-1879” carried out archaeological tasks in the coastal strip between the town of San Blas Bay and the mouth of the Negro river. The activities were directed to the maritime cultural heritage of the area, and included excavations, surveys, photogrammetric, mapping by drone and detailed documentary record of shipwrecks. Five structures corresponding to wooden shipwrecks were studied, giving continuity to the activities developed in 2018. The participating researchers were the archaeologists Nicolás Ciarlo, Amaru Argueso, Rodrigo Torres and Ana Castelli.
Towards the end of the campaign, an informative talk was given at the Municipal Library “Alfonsina Storni”, where the researchers presented the results obtained to the community and provided information about the archaeological work process. All the tasks could be carried out thanks to the support of the mentioned library, the Municipal Delegation of Bahía San Blas and the local community. Likewise, it was supported by the National Defense University, within the framework of a project on anthropological and archaeological studies of the historical conflict.
The team is currently working on the analysis of the data obtained, through integration with documentary sources, mapping with geographic information systems (GIS), three-dimensional models of the sites and the analysis of wood and metal samples in laboratory. By Ana Castelli.
