Description:
The Scottish Atlantic Maritime Past: Heritage, Investigation, Research and Education Project (SAMPHIRE), was established with the aims of assessing the potential contribution of community engagement as a means of accurately identifying, recording and protecting previously unknown maritime heritage. The objectives were to enhance the archaeological baseline of the area and to start fostering engagement between professional maritime archaeologists with the intent to promote a sense of stewardship of the maritime cultural heritage within local coastal communities in western Scotland. In the first two years of the project (2013-2014) the SAMPHIRE team commenced a programme of community engagement, interviewing local community members including divers, fishermen, historians and others who had knowledge of the seafloor in their area. This engagement programme has identified a significant number of new archaeological sites, the accuracy of reported data has been investigated through selected field survey and all results have been recorded and archived.