St. Augustine Archaeological Assoc Monthly Meeting

A talk will be given by Dr. Lillian Azevedo, Principal Investigator and Maritime Archaeologist at SEARCH. SEARCH is the largest archaeology and cultural resources management company in the world.

The title of her lecture is Heritage Tourism: Examples from the Caribbean and their Potential for Interpreting the Spring Break Wreck.

Dr Azevedo will speak about maritime heritage tourism. Although one of the goals of heritage tourism is bringing in revenue for a historic location, another significant aspect is that it raises awareness for, and celebrates the distinct culture of that community.

Dr. Azevedo’s dissertation in maritime archaeology at the University of Southampton explored ways to sustainably manage cultural resources in the Caribbean through tourism.  Since 2014, she has worked as a cultural resource manager at SEARCH, where she has explored non-traditional mitigation methods in Florida and the Southeast.  Her talk spans the Caribbean world and Florida by sharing the unique maritime heritage of Anguilla and the development of a heritage trail there, and the potential ways that maritime heritage may be sustainably managed on the First Coast.

Brendan Burke, Maritime Archaeologist at LAMP (Lighthouse Archaeological Maritime Program) will follow Dr Azevedo’s presentation with comments on heritage tourism as was witnessed at the Spring Break Wreck, (the shipwreck that washed up on Ponte Vedra beach in late March 2018), including the challenges faced with interpretation of the wreckage. He will also discuss the upcoming visit to the Spring Break Wreck and the Guana Tolomato Matanzas Research Reserve (GTM) on March 9th, hosted by SAAA as part of its March is Archaeology Month program.