The Archaeology of Ocean, a 19th-Century Merchant Schooner Wrecked in the Solent 1865

Everyday merchant schooners in the 19th century were essential to Britain’s industrial and imperial systems. This paper explores the shipwreck of the schooner Ocean. This site is an opportunity to set out an approach to a ship’s assemblage and show how an identity can be established for an unknown wreck. The ship’s life is reconstructed from the results of metallurgical analysis, GPS survey, archival research, and photogrammetric modelling. The result is an archaeological record of the shipwreck, and an appreciation of the ship as an assemblage that encompasses more than just the timber remains embedded in the sandbank.