The International Journal of Nautical Archaeology (2006) doi: 10.1111/j.1095-9270.2006.00088.x © 2006 The Author. Journal Compilation © 2006 The Nautical Archaeology Society. Published by Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA. Blackwell Publishing Ltd CULTURAL SITE FORMATION PROCESSES IN MARITIME ARCHAEOLOGY M. Gibbs Cultural Site Formation Processes in Maritime Archaeology: Disaster Response, Salvage and Muckelroy 30 Years on Martin Gibbs Department of Archaeology, School of Philosophical and Historical Inquiry, University of Sydney 2006, New South Wales, Australia Thirty years after Muckelroy’s seminal 1976 paper on shipwreck site formation, research on the cultural processes which contribute to the creation and modification of shipwrecks remains limited. It is proposed that by adopting a process-oriented framework, we can integrate and synthesize the documentary, oral and archaeological evidence of human response to shipwreck into a structure which parallels the physical progress of the disaster. Possible cultural responses to shipwreck are considered, from pre-voyage planning through to post-impact salvage, including physical correlations potentially visible in the archaeological record. © 2006 The Author Key words : salvage, site formation, cultural processes, shipwreck, disaster response, crisis. I t is 30 years since the publication of Keith Muckelroy’s seminal paper ‘The integration of historical and archaeological data concerning an historic wreck site’ (1976). Generally considered to be one of the first attempts to develop and apply explicit middle-range theory for maritime archaeology, the concepts proposed for modelling shipwreck site-formation processes have been widely embraced, as evident in the extensive citation of Muckelroy’s 1976 paper and his more com- prehensive 1978 volume (Gibbins and Adams, 2001). However, despite Muckelroy having recognized equally the roles of both cultural and natural processes in site formation, most attention and development of the schema has focused on the environmental aspects over any human elements. Three decades later, it is worth revisiting some of the arguments raised by Muckelroy (1976) regarding the role of cultural factors and possible avenues for accessing information about them. First, he emphasized the need to understand the pre-wreck nature of a ship and its contents, as well as behaviours during the wreck event and subsequent salvage, both on- and off-site. He suggested that in order to develop an understanding of these for any wreck-site, the relationships between the documentary, archaeological and oral data-sets available to shipwreck archaeologists had to be taken into account. In particular, critical extraction and analysis of relevant information would identify disparities or gaps in evidence which could then provide the focus for further attention, those discrepancies which later historical archaeologists would refer to as ‘ambiguities’ (Deagan, 1982). Finally, the implication of the 1976 paper is that by exploring well-documented and archaeologically-visible situations to examine the processes of transformation from ship to wreck and to wreck-site, generalized understandings and frameworks could be developed to assist in interpreting undocumented and/or archaeologically less coherent sites. The purpose of this paper is to expand upon Muckelroy’s themes and to consider in greater depth the range of cultural processes acting upon shipwreck sites. Following a short review of site-formation studies in maritime archaeology, it proposes a structure for understanding the behaviours involved in shipwreck events based on the models used in disaster studies and emphasizing the potential physical correlations and signatures of each stage. It then examines the nature of different forms and processes behind cultural removal of material from shipwrecks, including the different contexts of on-site and off-site ‘salvage’. In line with Muckelroy’s original aims, it is suggested that by employing a consistent framework in examining shipwreck events, we can more effectively