Burning Libraries: Environmental Impacts on Heritage and Science
Part of: Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)
The past decade has seen increasing concern expressed worldwide about the multiple challenges posed by global environmental change to human heritage and the archaeological record. Rising sea levels, increasing storminess, increasing wildfire, warming soil temperatures in the circumpolar north and at high elevations are all impacting the archaeological record in ways never seen before. This generation will see the destruction of thousands of sites--some already famous and of recognized heritage value and others that are exposed by one storm only to be destroyed by the next. At the same time, archaeology is increasingly recognized as a global change science that is making significant contributions to resource management, environmental conservation, and more effective scenario building for a genuinely sustainable future. Just as our resources are becoming recognized as a "distributed observing network of the past" -- as multiple libraries of Alexandria rich with data for many disciplines -- we are realizing the extent and urgency of the threat. Our libraries are on fire right now.
Other Keywords
Climate Change •
Coastal Erosion •
Heritage Management •
Sea Level Rise •
Mitigation •
Salvage •
Predictive Modeling •
Site Destruction •
Spatial Analysis •
Public Archaeology
Geographic Keywords
United States of America (Country) •
North America (Continent) •
USA (Country) •
Greenland (Country) •
Kingdom of Sweden (Country) •
Kingdom of Norway (Country) •
French Republic (Country) •
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Nort (Country) •
Ireland (Country) •
Isle of Man (Country)
Resources Inside This Collection (Viewing 1-14 of 14)
- Documents (14)
- Climate Change and the Predicament of Archaeology in the U.S. Middle Atlantic Region (2017)
- Community action at sites threatened by natural processes (2017)
- Forecasting Climate Change Impacts and Resource Values to Set Preservation and Research Priorities (2017)
- Heritage Monitoring Scouts (HMS Florida): Engaging the Public to Monitor Heritage at Risk (2017)
- The library is on fire, now what? Assessing the damage and how to approach it: A case study from the Chesapeake Bay. (2017)
- Mitigating Climate Change Impacts on Heritage Sites? (2017)
- Norse Greenland Farms and The Loss of Organic Preservation: No More Wood, Textiles, or Bones (2017)
- The Potential for Georeferenced Spatial Data on Coastal Erosion Sites (2017)
- Puerto Rican Cultural Heritage Under Threat by Climate Change (2017)
- Responding to Burning Libraries (2017)
- Shell Middens and Sea Level Rise: Learning from the Past and Preparing for the Future (2017)
- A ticking clock? Considerations for preservation, valuation and site management of Greenland’s coastal archaeology in the 21st century. (2017)
- What To Do about Avayalik Island 1: A Remote Central Place in the Paleoeskimo World (2017)
- Wildfires, Forests, and the Archaeological Record: Investigating Complex and Persistent Human-Landscape Legacies (2017)