Profiles

University of Southampton maritime archaeologist Lucy Blue has joined the team of experts in the major new BBC series Oceans.

While the series looks at the natural marine environment, Lucy's perspective is on the human impact on our seas over centuries.

As senior lecturer in Archaeology and co-director of Southampton's Centre for Maritime Archaeology, Lucy is one of the leading experts in her field - investigating maritime communities and the impact they had on the sea.

Dr Lucy Blue

"The Oceans aren't just about the natural history," Lucy says. "They are impacted on as much by human action as by animals."

Lucy explains that human impact on the oceans is far from a new phenomenon - the Romans had a massive impact on the Mediterranean.

"They over-fished in some cases, they deforested and caused siltation, they actually changed the landscape, both on the edge of the water and in the water, in ways we wouldn't necessarily imagine. It has happened before, but now we're doing it on a much larger scale."

Lucy progressed into exploring shipwrecks and lost underwater civilisations from land-based archeology.

Lucy and the rest of the Oceans team

But exploring sites underwater requires even more detective work: "You are only ever  looking at a small part of the evidence so you've got to pull together all the clues and apply imagination."

"That's the fascination - it's challenging and it's fun you just don't know what you're going to find."

Travelling around the world and appearing on a major TV programme, Lucy admits has led to some joking with her Southampton colleagues:

"There has been a certain amount of mickey-taking - they all think I've been swanning around having a nice time!"

Oceans - Wednesdays at 8pm on BBC2