Digital Approaches to Heritage at Risk and Sustainability at Egmont Key, FL

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Most of the 200,000 tourists who visit Egmont Key, FL, each year are unaware that the historically significant island is vanishing beneath their feet. In the last 150 years, the island has lost nearly 50% of its landmass due to climate change and anthropogenic activities. This presentation details an attempt to raise public awareness and understanding of sustainability and heritage at Egmont Key, with digital technologies and collaborative research. Geoinformatics methods, including terrestrial laser scanning and aerial photogrammetry, document the island’s landscape and its surviving historic architecture, and a GIS analysis tracks the effects of coastal erosion and sand replenishment. Archival research and community outreach reveal previously unknown information about historical events, such as the incarceration of the Seminole people during the Indian Removal Period. Other key heritages at risk include the Union occupation during the Civil War, militarization of the island during the Spanish American War, and yellow fever quarantine camps that included iconic people such as Clara Barton. Insights from these many datasets were combined to create an immersive virtual reality tour of Egmont Key that gives voice to the disappearing island’s many untold histories.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 86th Annual Meeting, Online (2021)   •
• SAA 2021: General Sessions

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 33439