The Practical Mariner

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The Practical Mariner Project explores the ancient sailing world in the Mediterranean from the perspective of mariners and their practical needs. We compare and contrast wayfaring and place-making on either side of the 3.2Ky climate event, i.e. 1500-800 BCE, during which rainfall declined sharply and state-run networks unravelled under pressure from a range of social and political factors, only to re-emerge in an altered and greatly extended form. Processes of wayfinding are of particular interest: did new routes emerge out of knowledge exchange with fishing communities or the persistence of low-level local and regional trade?

Our team is combining agent-based modelling software with geographical information systems to animate the complex interaction between the carrying capacity of the land, the organisation of coastal communities and the practical requirement of sea-borne living. We integrate the availability of food, water, chandlery, and materials for repairs on land with the presence of fish in the sea in different seasons and different points in the agricultural and maritime cycles. Our aim is to assess the impact of climate change on sailing and fishing networks, particularly along the north African coast and on smaller islands across the Mediterranean.

The Practical Mariner is a three-year research project at the School of Archaeology, University of Oxford. It is funded by the Augmentum Charitable Intitiative.

Online Maps

Open the map

Ancient Mediterranean Shipwrecks 1500-500 BC

Look through our database of wrecks: find citations, get basic info, and see which materials have been identified at each wreck.

Read the storymap here

Making Landfall in the Ancient World

See how we use 3D GIS techniques to weigh in on a century-old argument about visibility in the Mediterranean.

Meet the Team

Principal Investigator

Linda Hulin’s interests centre upon interregional contact across the Mediterranean, but particularly in the east, in the Levant, Egypt, Cyprus and Libya. She focuses upon social relationships: how new information is learned and passes across time and space, and the interplay between aesthetic sensibilities and social identification in both the ancient and modern world.

Click here to view Linda's profile page

PDRA in Maritime Archaeology Data

Karl Smith specialises in GIS, remote sensing, and computer modelling. His DPhil research focused on simulating prehistoric seafaring – specifically agent-based maritime mobility modelling, coastal visibility analysis, and methods of navigation. He has also worked as a geophysicist and GIS specialist on archaeological projects in the UK, Italy, Croatia, Greece, Oman, Turkmenistan, and Kazakhstan. His work with The Practical Mariner includes creating seafaring agent-based GIS models, using GIS data to model ancient ports and landing places, investigating the effects of resource/climatic variability on coastal communities, and supporting our fieldwork projects in the Mediterranean. Click here to view Karl's scripts on GitHub.

Click here to view Karl's profile page.

PDRA in Archaeology of the LBA Mediterranean

Max MacDonald completed his PhD at the Centre for Maritime Archaeology at the University of Southampton in 2024. His thesis focused on the human relationship with the sea in Late Bronze Age Greece. Drawing on his experiences growing up on the west coast of British Columbia, his research explored both maritime material culture and the emotional experience of the sea. He has participated in archaeological excavations in Greece, Italy, Spain, England, and Scotland, both underwater and on land.

Click here to view Max's profile page.

Conferences

Come hang out with us and hear about our latest work!

Karl presenting at CAA International 2026 in Vienna.

Identifying Coastal Nodes in the Mediterranean

Session / Paper, The 53rd Annual Computer Applications in Archaeology Conference (CAA)

Vienna, Austria: March 31-April 4, 2026

Participants at the Comparing Sicily and Cyprus: Scientifi Approaches conference

Large-scale GIS coastal analysis and harbour 'affordance': a Sicilian/Cypriot comparison

Paper, Comparing Cyprus & Sicily: Scientific approaches

Durham, UK: March 27-27, 2026

Karl at ASOR

Why Stop Here? Harbours and Anchorages in the Mediterranean

Poster, American Society of Overseas Research Annual Meeting 2025 (ASOR)

Boston, US: November 19-22, 2025

Linda at EAA

Wayfaring and Place-Making in the Mediterranean Sea

Roundtable, The 31st European Association of Archaeologists Annual Meeting (EAA)

Belgrade, Serbia / Online: September 2-6, 2025

Max at GAO