Scylla or Charybdis? Prioritizing the Investigation of Sites Endangered by Natural Hazards

Summary

Maryland has 8,000 miles of tidal shoreline associated with the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries and more than 12-percent of its surface area in floodplains. These high risk areas for flooding and coastal erosion contain about 40-percent of Maryland’s archeological sites and presumably many more that have yet to be discovered. It is not feasible or prudent to excavate every endangered site, thus choices about which sites to investigate must be made strategically. This paper lays out a reasoned approach to the identification and excavation of endangered sites based on: developing and refining historic/prehistoric contexts; identifying gaps in those contexts, and prioritizing which sites to survey and excavate based on context, archaeological sensitivity, and vulnerability. Other natural hazards and the effects of climate change that will impact archeological sites will also be identified, as the approach to prioritization is applicable to all hazards, and as sites are at risk to more than erosion and rising waters. Finally, ideas will be presented on how to work with non-traditional partners, like emergency managers, to communicate the risk natural hazards and climate change pose to archeological sites and why it is important to "mitigate" those risks to sites.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 20261