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Flecker: Early Voyaging in the South China Sea NSC Working Paper No. 19with square section iron nails. The outer planking is fastened to the inner planking bysmaller nails, and often there is an additional sacrificial outer layer to protect from toredoworm attack. Both hull and bulkhead planks are dowel edge-joined. Mast steps have twinrecesses for tabernacle partners. They are steered with an axial rudder which is held inplace in wooded sockets in the same manner as a Chinese junk. Teak seems to be theprimary timber used for construction, although additional investigation is necessary todetermine whether these ships were made exclusively in Thailand. The author speculatesthat this design was utilised elsewhere in Southeast Asia, and from limited archaeologicalevidence, continued to be used well after the decline of Thai ceramics production in themid-16 th century (Flecker 2007).Arguably the hull shape, keel, multi-layering, and dowel edge-joining can beattributed to Southeast Asian traditions. Bulkheads, iron fastenings, rigging, and theaxial rudder are contributions from China.Fig. 13. Details of the Phu Quoc Wreck, a South China Sea Tradition vesselCredit: Author.Archaeological Evidence in China and Southeast AsiaMaritime archaeology has only been practiced in Asia since the late 1970s. It wasintroduced at that time in response to the looting of wrecks in the Gulf of Siam.Interestingly, institutional archaeology has been limited to Thailand ever since. Virtuallyall that is known of the multitude of shipwrecks found throughout the rest of SoutheastAsia comes to us from responsible commercial excavators, working under license withregional governments. China is a relative newcomer to maritime archaeology. The fieldis fully controlled by the government and efforts are being made to make up for losttime. But no amount of effort, in China or Southeast Asia, will bring back the masses31