Discovering the discoverer

For more than 500 years the historic ship has silently escaped all human presence, hiding with it secrets from one of the most important periods in human history. Off the northern coast of what is now the Dominican Republic, deep under the sea, buried beneath loads of silk and mud rests what IU archaeologists claim may possibly be Christopher Columbus' lost flagship, the Mariagalante. \nAfter years of work excavating and exploring the bay and surrounding site of La Isabela Bay -- the first permanent European settlement in the Americas, set up in 1494 during Columbus' second voyage -- the IU team, consisting of faculty and 10 graduate students, are now closer than ever to finding the lost vessel and discovering more clues of the first sustained interactions between indigenous people and Europeans. \nWhile hopeful, the team is not yet ready to say for sure what they have found is definitely the Mariagalante, which is believed to have sunk in the bay along with about six other vessels of the time as a result of hurricanes in the years immediately following the settlement's establishment. \n"What we have is a magnetic anomaly we picked up using electronic surveillance years ago," said Charles Beeker, IU director of Academic Diving and Underwater Science Programs. "Now we've gotten into the excavation process. We don't have a proven vessel, just the signals."\nLeading the group of 10 students this summer at the site, Beeker and Geoffrey Conrad, director of the Mathers Museum of World Cultures, have continued the ongoing process of slowly and delicately trying to uncover the ship. In addition, the team maintains various projects onshore, including archaeological exploration of the abandoned settlement and village sites of the native Taino Indians. \nMembers of the IU group have been in the site at various times for more than 10 years now since the University entered an agreement with the Dominican Republic government to conduct its research and search for Columbus-era artifacts and lost ships. \n"This is one of the most historic areas in the world," Conrad said. "It is where the old and new world comes together for the first time. It has transformed history as much as the agricultural revolution. It has to be a top seven, at least, moment in the transformations in human history."\nBeeker said the potential of discovering one of Columbus' ships, especially the Mariagalante, would bear significant historical impact if found because there have been no documented Columbus vessels discovered yet. He said even more important than seeing the architectural design of the ship is to see what native cargo was loaded in the ship ready to be brought back to Spain to convince Columbus' doubter the trips were beneficial to the country. \nBeeker said the team is using some of the latest in scientific equipment to locate the ship, including magnetic reads to profile the sea bottom while a computer system looks at magnetic signatures to electronically survey the area. Highlighting their finds this summer was a 300-pound anchor they surfaced, which may be from one of Columbus' ships. Despite their progress, Beeker said the work remains slow. \n"Its kind of like moving cement, its very heavy and dense," he said. "You literally have to dig by hand or tool. It's been a little frustrating moving into 10 years, but we are still hopeful."\nThe group's main work for the summer was concluded in the middle of June, when they had to return despite gaining so much ground on reaching a discovery. However, Beeker said their work is far from over. \n"We actually have one graduate student still down there right now, and we plan on going back this November and again next spring," he said. "We won't have enough time to excavate the ship the first time back and I'm not completely sure when we will be able to (start) doing so ... possibly by next spring."\nWhile the undersea search is one part of the mystery the team hopes to uncover, another key aspect of the IU project is on-land excavation they are hoping will reveal even more about the time period. \n"One of pieces to the big puzzle is how the arrival of the Spanish affected the Indians and what happened to them," Conrad said. "Were they as normally portrayed or did they survive in more rural areas and part of the genetic heritage of today's European heritage?"\nConrad said on a typical day for excavation on land, they usually start by examining the surface to determine a good place to dig and to get information about what they are looking for. Then he said they will excavate a series of squares, 1 meter by 1 meter, laid out on a grid as they try to peel down the ground level by level to find what is in each department. \n"Once we dig the site, it can't be dug again," Conrad said. "So we have to keep good records to put back together in the future if they want to. \nConrad said there are numerous benefits for the students making the trip, the first being they get real hands-on professional training, which is valuable because many will choose to enter the archeological field as a career. In addition, he said they get to witness something of great consequence and see things very few get to observe so intimately. \n"This is where it all started," Conrad said. "I can stand as many of the other students have in what is left of Columbus' house and in the first church built in the new world. So it's a chance to really experience something fairly momentous first-hand"