CHAPTER 33 COASTAL ARCHAEOLOGY BEN FORD INTRODUCTION MARLOW in Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness understood the "delightful mystery" of blank spaces on maps; even those partly filled offer the opportunity to find a niche and make a contribution. For Marlow these spaces were Africa, South Amer- ica, Australia, and the Arctic, but for archaeology many of the blanks occur along our coasts, the strips of land and water between the well-defined domains of under- water and terrestrial archaeologies (Erlandson and Fitzpatrick 2006: 23; Gawronski 2003: 133; Loveluck and Tys 2006: 161; Stilgoe 1994: ix). Just as Marlow's equatorial Africa was partly filled with rivers, lakes, and place-names, the coast is not archae- ologically blank. Several seminal studies in littoral archaeology serve as landmarks, but the shore has been far less mapped and measured than other areas. How else could recent shoreline surveys of such diverse places as Kilwa Kisiwani, Tanzania; Kingston, Canada; and the north Kent Coast of England, all areas with strong tradi- tions in coastal archaeology, well-known archaeological potential, large coastal populations, and active diving, fishing, and shellfish-gathering communities, yield such substantial and significant results (Moore 2008; Paddenberg and Hession 2008; Pollard 2008)? Clearly, coastal archaeology is a growth field for maritime archaeology in terms of the data that can be gathered, but "the living edge" between land and water is also a fruitful realm for the development of archaeological theory (Walker 199o: 271). The coast is a difficult environment for archaeologists in terms of pres- ervation, access, and methods. Similarly, past peoples recognized the coast as a natural boundary, perhaps the most obvious boundary on the landscape, and, as a result, imbued it with spiritual and cultural associations. Often these associations focused on the sea's dangerous or cleansing nature (Cooney 2004: 326; Flatman