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Travis County Archeological Society
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Welcome to the Travis County Archeological Society!
Our next regular meeting will be Thursday, May 10th, 2012 at 7pm. Meetings are currently held at Nuevo Leon's downtown location, 1501 E. 6th Street. Meetings are held the second Thursday of each month, except June and December. They are free and open to the public. For those who wish to come early, we gather around 5:45 PM for dinner, drinks, and fellowship. We pay for our own meals and for that of the guest speaker. The short business meeting starts at 7:00 PM, followed by the guest speaker's presentation.
The May program will feature Amy Borgens, State Marine Archeologist at the Texas Historical Commission:
The Archeology of Shipwrecks in the Lone Star State
There are more than 1800 reported shipwrecks in state waters. Almost one hundred vessels have been discovered and issued archeological site numbers. These shipwrecks include Spanish "Plate Fleet" vessels, Civil War blockade runners, Texas river steamboats, and a WWII torpedoed steamship. Texas was the first Gulf state to develop antiquities legislation to protect historic shipwreck sites and has employed a state marine archeologist since 1972. Amy Borgens of the Texas Historical Commission will overview the variety of historic vessels investigated in Texas and focus particularly on Texas-permitted projects conducted in more recent years since the discovery of La Belle in 1995.
Amy Borgens was appointed State Marine Archeologist at the Texas Historical Commission (THC) in June 2010. She earned a bachelor's degree from Purdue University in fine arts and received her master's degree in anthropology from Texas A&M University with a specialization in nautical archeology. As the State Marine Archeologist, Borgens is responsible for the preservation, protection, and investigation of shipwrecks in all state-owned waters. Before joining the THC, she was employed as a nautical archeologist in an environmental and engineering consulting firm in Austin. She has worked in the field of Texas maritime archeology since 1997 and has been associated with several notable Texas shipwreck projects, including La Belle, USS Westfield, and Neches Belle. In addition, Borgens assisted in the excavation of Oklahoma?s only known shipwreck site, Heroine (1838), and she participated in the remotely operated vehicle investigation of an early 19th-century shipwreck at a depth of 4,000 feet off the coast of Louisiana (the Mardi Gras Shipwreck Project). Collectively, Borgens has recorded historic shipwrecks dating from the Byzantine Period to the mid-20th century and has worked on projects in Louisiana, Oklahoma, Texas, Canada, Turkey, and the Gulf of Mexico.
Early 20th century photo of the Neches Belle loaded with cotton, from Portal to Texas History.
If you are in the Austin area on one of our second-Thursday-of-the-month meeting nights, please drop in to see what's going on. More about our monthly meetings at http://travis.txarch.org/calendar.htm.
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Steven Gauna
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