About the Project
The Practical Mariner Project explores the ancient sailing world in the Mediterranean from the perspective of mariners and their practical needs. The team will compare and contrast wayfaring and place-making either side of the 3.2Ky climate event, i.e. 1500-800 BCE, during which rainfall declined sharply and state-run networks unravelled under pressure from a range of social and political factors, only to re-emerge in an altered and greatly extended form. Processes of wayfinding are of particular interest: did new routes emerge out of knowledge exchange with fishing communities or the persistence of low-level local and regional trade?
Our team is combining agent-based modelling software with geographical information systems to animate the complex interaction between the carrying capacity of the land, the organisation of coastal communities and the practical requirement of sea-borne living. The availability of food, water, chandlery, and materials for repairs on land will be integrated with the presence of fish in the sea in different seasons and different points in the agricultural and maritime cycles. The aim is to assess the impact of climate change on sailing and fishing networks, particularly along the north African coast and on smaller islands across the Mediterranean.
The Practical Mariner Team
Linda Hulin
Linda Hulin’s interests centre upon the materiality of interregional contact across the eastern Mediterranean, and particularly the Levant, Egypt, Cyprus and Libya. She has researched the impact of empire on both rulers and ruled in the Late Bronze Age, and she focuses generally upon the relationship between aesthetic sensibilities and social identification in both the ancient and modern world.
Karl Smith
Karl Smith specialises in GIS, remote sensing, and computer modelling. His DPhil research focused on simulating prehistoric seafaring – specifically agent-based maritime mobility modelling, coastal visibility analysis, and methods of navigation. He has also worked as a geophysicist and GIS specialist on archaeological projects in the UK, Italy, Croatia, Greece, Oman, and Kazakhstan. His work with The Practical Mariner includes creating seafaring GIS models, using GIS data to model ancient ports and landing places, investigating the effects of resource/climatic variability on coastal communities, and supporting our fieldwork projects in the Mediterranean.
Max MacDonald
Max MacDonald completed his PhD at the Centre for Maritime Archaeology at the University of Southampton in 2024. His thesis focused on the human relationship with the sea in Late Bronze Age Greece. Drawing on his experiences growing up on the west coast of British Columbia, his research explored both maritime material culture and the emotional experience of the sea. He has participated in archaeological excavations in Greece, Italy, Spain, England, and Scotland, both underwater and on land.