Costa Rica Field School

For the past month, our first year students along with their professors, Dr. Lynn Harris and Dr. Nathan Richards, and crew chiefs Jeremy Borrelli, Hannah Piner, and Melissa Price participated in summer field school in Costa Rica. The team was there to document two wreck sites in Cahuita National Park, Cahuita, Costa Rica. One site was made up a 13 different cannon and two anchors, which were all mapped into place. The other site was a brick pile that stretched about 50 meters and two cannon. These ships may be two Danish slave ships burned and wrecked by the crew who missed their target location in the Caribbean Islands. A third site was mapped and examined in Puerto Viejo, El Lanchon. This site represents a barge used in constructing the Panama Canal and was left in Costa Rica following its use.
Besides documenting the sites, the students photographed maritime art work throughout Cahuita and Puerto Viejo to see how maritime society infiltrates societal values and lifestyle. They also had the opportunity to document small boats, in particular the unique fishing boats of the community, including the boats used for diving.
To finish the project, students and crew chiefs presented the findings of the project to the community and to students at a local high school. They also wrote up a report upon returning to the States.
Read more about the project at the project's blog: http://blog.ecu.edu/sites/hist5530/, and look forward to a session at SHA in Washington DC this year focusing on our adventures in Costa Rica.

The students would like to thank the professors and crew chiefs for putting up with us and teaching us about the numerous steps to completing a full project. We would also like to thanks Jason Nunn for accompanying us as our DSO.

Brick site

Cannon site

El Lanchon

Local Maritime artwork

Students working hard mapping the brick site