Comment by analog31
10 hours ago
I suppose this is an area where amateurs can help out. I live near the Great Lakes. Once in the while, amateur divers will discover a new shipwreck. It's like the way that amateur astronomers used to look for comets with the hope of being the first to report one.
Divers almost never just randomly find a shipwreck underwater. Usually they'll spot some kind of object on sonar first, then dive to check it out.
in Italy there are "archeological groups"[0] which are amateurs that mostly help with maintaining and popularizing archeological findings.
I think actually excavating stuff is beyond their purvue tho.
[0] https://gruppiarcheologici.org/