At the Frontier of Big Climate, Disaster Capitalism, and Endangered Cultural Heritage in Barbuda, Lesser Antilles

This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "At the Frontier of Big Climate, Disaster Capitalism, and Endangered Cultural Heritage in Barbuda, Lesser Antilles" at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Small Island Developing States (SIDS) of the Caribbean are vulnerable to the effects of climatic change. The damaging impacts of contemporary sea-level rise and increasing hurricane activity have had a significant influence on the region’s physical, economic, and sociocultural landscapes. In 2017, Category 5 Hurricane Irma made a direct hit on the island of Barbuda, of the nation Antigua & Barbuda, which resulted in the evacuation of the island’s entire population and widespread devastation. This symposium focuses on the first year of an NSF IRES international research effort to study current issues in Caribbean archaeology, historical anthropology, geoarchaeology, bioarchaeology, osteobiography, photogrammetry, site management, garbology, and community cultural heritage. Collaborators in this project explore the long durée in a transdisciplinary perspective from the first peopling to the present day. The peer mentorship of junior colleagues is at the core of this endeavor, so as they move into their chosen fields, they are better prepared to address the unprecedented effects of the Anthropocene in a holistic perspective.