Heritage at Risk: Shifting Responses from Reactive to Proactive

Part of: Society for Historical Archaeology 2020

This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "Heritage at Risk: Shifting Responses from Reactive to Proactive," at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

Climate change and its associated impacts are being felt across the globe. These varied risks affect sites in coastal and inland regions and are seen in multiple forms. Media attention brings problems associated with climate change into the forefront of public awareness, the intensity around its study increases as residents, governments, and organizations face the potential repercussions in their community. Climate-intensified weather events present challenges to personal safety, housing, infrastructure, and cultural resources. This session describes some of the impacts to archaeological and historical resources and demonstrates the actions being taken in response. For historical archaeologists, historians, and anthropologists these impacts introduce an opportunity for studies that lead to actionable outcomes including: developing partnerships with state and local organizations, establishing connections between people and historical resources, creating practices leading to the protection and mitigation of historically important sites, and to having discussions about what resources should/could be abandoned.

Resources Inside This Collection (Viewing 1-6 of 6)

  • Documents (6)

Documents
  • Known Sites, Unknown States: Monitoring Acitivities on Intertidal Sites in St. Augustine (2020)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Allyson Ropp.

    This is an abstract from the session entitled "Heritage at Risk: Shifting Responses from Reactive to Proactive" , at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. Over the course of the last decade, the St. Augustine Lighthouse Archaeological Maritime Program and its preceeding organization have documented a number of intertidal and coastal sites in addition to the shipwrecks off St. Augutine. Wtih the increased changes to climate and sea level rise also arose an interest...

  • Maine Midden Minders: Racing the Clock to Document Cultural and Environmental Archives (2020)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Alice R. Kelley. Bonnie Newsom.

    This is an abstract from the session entitled "Heritage at Risk: Shifting Responses from Reactive to Proactive" , at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. The Midden Minders program is a citizen-science based project designed to monitor and document the erosion of many of the approximately 2000 archaeological shell middens on the Maine coast. Virtually all these sites are eroding in the face of climate change induced sea level rise and increasing weather...

  • Proactive Approaches to Heritage at Risk in Florida (2020)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Sarah Miller.

    This is an abstract from the session entitled "Heritage at Risk: Shifting Responses from Reactive to Proactive" , at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. The Florida Public Archaeology Network engaged in a number of reactive approaches to climate change threats on cultural resources in Florida starting in 2013. In 2016, FPAN shifted to a proactive model under the Heritage Monitoring Scouts umbrella to include training, increased access to resources, networking...

  • Threat Assessments of Archaeological Sites at Colonial National Historical Park, James City County, Virginia (2020)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Nicholas Arnhold. Timothy Roberts.

    This is an abstract from the session entitled "Heritage at Risk: Shifting Responses from Reactive to Proactive" , at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. Numerous historic, prehistoric, and multicomponent archaeological sites are preserved within the boundaries of Colonial National Historical Park in James City County, Virginia. Dozens of these resources are experiencing active erosion partly as a result of climate-intensified weather events and rising sea levels...

  • Threats Abound: Responding to Climate Change and Planning for the Future at Jamestown Island (2020)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Dwayne Scheid. David Givens. Jennifer Cramer. Dorothy Geyer.

    This is an abstract from the session entitled "Heritage at Risk: Shifting Responses from Reactive to Proactive" , at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. Impacts of climate change on riverine and coastal environs have been felt by people throughout the Middle Atlantic and Jamestown Island for thousands of years. Threats to the island include: rising sea level, tidal surge, inundation, erosion and the impacts of the increasing strength and quantities of major...

  • The Waters Around You Have Grown: Discovering Staten Island's Past through Protecting its Future (2020)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only A. Michael Pappalardo.

    This is an abstract from the session entitled "Heritage at Risk: Shifting Responses from Reactive to Proactive" , at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. Located at the tip of the New York Bight, Staten Island suffered more direct damage from Hurricane Sandy’s storm surge than any other NYC borough. In response, the Living Breakwaters Project calls for a series of house-sized concrete blocks strategically placed offshore to reduce wave energy, promote calm water,...