Conflict and Commerce: Maritime Archaeological Site Distribution as Cultural Change on the Roanoke River, North Carolina

For centuries, the transportation provided by the Roanoke River, North Carolina, has played a vital role in the economic and military history of the area. The Civil War illustrated the importance of the waterway as a military consideration, when both the Union and the Confederacy strove to control the river. The conflict inflicted grievous harm upon the region's maritime transportation. Taken as a whole, the shipwrecks and abandoned vessels of the river provide an exceptional vantage point regarding questions of technology and economy, both in times of peace and when these tranquil periods are juxtaposed against warfare and upheaval. This research uses statistical and geo-spatial analyses of the shipwrecks and abandoned vessels of the Roanoke River in an attempt to discern anthropological patterns. Both historical and archaeological data are the subject of investigation. Three major themes: manner of loss, trade, and technology, are explored primarily to interpret how cultural change is reflected in the assemblage of shipwrecked and abandoned vessels of the waterway. The trends that emerge are often interwoven among these themes, and through them, this paper attempts to explain such diverse phenomena as shifting trade patterns, wreck clustering, vessel dimensions, and the dichotomy of behavior between times of war and times of peace.