Heritage at Risk: Shifting Responses from Reactive to Proactive

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.