AUGUSTA — Nautical archaeologist Warren Riess and conservator Molly Carlson will kick off the Maine State Museum’s annual series of talks and programs on Wednesday, Feb. 9.

The “Highlights at the Maine State Museum” presentation is free of charge and will begin at 6:30 p.m. at the museum in the State House Complex off State Street.

Riess will begin the presentation, “The Incredible Story of the 1710 Wreck of the Nottingham Galley and the Recovery and Conservation of its Artifacts,” with his research about the shipwreck and experience diving at the wreck site off Boon Island near York’s Cape Neddick.

During that time, Riess and his crew retrieved nine of the Nottingham Galley’s cannons. Carlson will then pick up the story to tell about the Nottingham Galley artifacts that came to her conservation lab. There, she worked on the challenging project to conserve the ship’s cannon-firing supplies, including wadding and a powder bag that remarkably had survived underwater for nearly 300 years.

Riess and Carlson’s presentation will also cover the more grisly aspects of the Nottingham Galley’s story. The 15-man crew survived the wreck but the ship and supplies were lost. Marooned on tiny Boon Island for 24 days during the thick of winter and faced with starvation, cold and extreme privation, the survivors cannibalized one of their fellow crew members who had died of exposure.

The museum is currently exhibiting one cannon, along with wadding, a powder bag, tampion, cannonball, grenade, and wooden fuse from the Nottingham Galley. The exhibit will be available for viewing at the conclusion of the evening’s presentation.

Riess, a resident of Bristol, is the University of Maine’s research associate professor of history and marine sciences at the Darling Center in Walpole. He is internationally known as director of the archaeological investigation of the Ronson ship, an 18th century British merchantman discovered in Manhattan. He has also done archaeological work on the Revolutionary War’s Penobscot Expedition, and has written and researched extensively on the 17th century English galleon Angel Gabriel.

Carlson has more than 20 years of conservation experience working with wet archaeological objects from both freshwater and marine sites. Since 2001, she has been involved in a number of conservation and emergency disaster response projects as sole proprietor of Head Tide Archaeological Conservation Laboratory in Wiscasset.

For more information, call 287-2301 or visit www.mainestatemuseum.org.

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