Institute of Nautical Archaeology

The Institute of Nautical Archaeology (INA) is the world’s oldest organization devoted to the study of humanity’s interaction with the sea through the practice of archaeology. INA’s founder Dr. George Bass pioneered the science of underwater excavation in the 1960s through work at Cape Gelidonya and other ancient shipwreck sites off the coast of Turkey. Since then, INA has expanded its scope and activities to work globally on shipwrecks and submerged sites and worked with Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas to establish the Nautical Archaeology Program there. Hundreds of archaeologists have received their training at Texas A&M and today, after more than three decades of the Nautical Archaeology Program’s existence, many of the world’s leading scholars have received their degrees from Texas A&M. They do so to add to humanity understands of seafaring’s role in the development of civilization. Three-quarters of the earth is covered by water, and in the fabric of human history, the most pervasive thread is our association with the planet’s oceans, rivers and lakes.