1A-31 Report Review

Seafarers Quest, LLC. Final Report

2014.04 Area 2
December 28th 2016 to July 27th 2017

Reviewer: Melissa R. Price

Date Reviewed: July 10, 2017

A final professional archaeological report includes a discussion of previous archaeological

surveys and how the newly acquired data adds to the information gained from previous surveys.
While Seafarers Quests final report included a detailed overview of the prehistory and history
of the region, as well as a list of known shipwrecks in the area, it did not include an adequate
introduction to the site on which they have been working. This is most likely included in
previous reports, but a final report should also include an introduction to the site. An outside
reader who has not read other reports concerning this permit area would have no idea which
shipwreck or site the company is referring to. This submission is not sufficient as a stand-alone
final report. The purpose of the final report is not only to satisfy permit requirements, but also to
serve as reference material and data for researchers who may wish to study the area in the future.

The final report briefly references previous archaeological surveys in the Methods section, but
uses future verb tenses (remote sensing surveys will provide), which causes some confusion.
Are these methods from previous surveys, from the survey for 2016-2017, or suggestions for the
future? The final report is supposed to discuss what has already taken place during the permit
timeline; perhaps this methods section was copied from other reports or proposals. Other
sections, for example December 28th 2014 to July 27th 2015, must also have been directly
copied from previous reports because of the use of future tense. Overall, the report is not well
organized and contained grammatical and spelling errors, which detracts from its professional
tone. Furthermore, BAR personnel should be able to easily access all associated data (the
embedded links for excel sheets and PDFs do not work); this information should instead be
appended to the end of the report.