Robert Grenier

From 1978 to 1985, Parks Canada marine archaeologists excavated the wreck of the San Juan, a Spanish Basque galleon loaded with whale oil, which had been lost in 1565 in the harbor of Red Bay, Labrador, “Oil Capital of the World” at the time. This is the oldest shipwreck found north of Florida.

Hear how the excavation became one of the most comprehensive marine archaeological projects ever undertaken in Canada in a lecture by Robert Grenier at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee (UWM) on Sunday, Nov. 15.

Grenier, chief of underwater archaeology service for Parks Canada, will speak on “The 1565 Wreck of the Basque Galleon San Juan and the 2001 UNESCO Convention for Heritage Shipwrecks” at 3 p.m. in room G90 of Sabin Hall, 3413 N. Downer Ave.

It is sponsored by the Archeological Institute of America–Milwaukee Society and the departments of Anthropology and Art History at UWM.

The excavation of the San Juan established new policies and precedents in underwater archaeology, and spawned numerous innovative recovery techniques. Those developments and the importance of the ship itself – linking the New World to the Old – were reasons UNESCO put the San Juan on its logo for the 2001 UNESCO Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage. This convention, finally ratified in January 2009, is significant because it is the first legal instrument designed to protect the threatened cultural heritage that lies under the sea.

Grenier holds the Nancy Wilkie Lectureship in Cultural Heritage for the Archaeological Institute of America. He was project director of the San Juan excavation from 1978-85.