California Archaeology and Climate Change

The impacts of anthropogenic climate change are currently eroding California's cultural heritage. Over the past three years, the Society for California Archaeology (SCA) has been organizing efforts to address these impacts and survey the state's coastline before thousands of archaeological sites are lost. Across the state, different agencies, tribes, university anthropology programs, avocational societies, and volunteers have been working collaboratively in conducting field studies and bringing their results to a larger public through different media venues. To date, over 80 volunteers from 7 universities, working on the lands of multiple state and federal agencies, have donated their time to survey public lands. In addition, agencies and tribes have been conducting their own studies in the hopes of managing impacts at a local level through their site-specific expertise. Tribes in particular face special challenges in protecting ancestral collection and ceremonial areas on public lands and have created their own tribal preservation programs. This symposium presents a cross-section of these efforts and offers different models for preparing for climate change for archaeologists and cultural resource preservationists worldwide.