Reflecting on CAST

Abstract The Computational Archaeology and Seafaring Theory (CAST) workshop, held in December 2022 at Stanford University, California, USA, marked the first attempt to bring together the latest theories and approaches and some of the great maritime archaeological, computational and modelling minds, as well as seafaring practitioners, to address modelling of ancient seafaring. It engaged a broad range of interests, variables and datasets involved in seafaring and computational modelling. This brief paper attempts to critique these papers and situate some of the key themes that emanate from them within broader archaeological debates.