Threat Assessments of Archaeological Sites at Colonial National Historical Park, James City County, Virginia

Summary

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 affecting the James River and College Creek, tidal drainages that have been a focus of human habitation for millennia. To assist the National Park Service in their efforts to develop effective management plans for significant threatened sites, Cultural Resource Analysts, Inc. conducted an assessment of 32 sites within the park using Darrin Lowery’s (2008) Shoreline Erosion Score Sheet. This paper describes the assessment methodology and presents the results of the study, as well as a plan for data recovery excavations at Site 44JC1280, a Middle Woodland Period settlement identified by the William and Mary Center for Archaeological Research in 2018 that is currently eroding into the James River.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for Historical Archaeology 2020   •
• Heritage at Risk: Shifting Responses from Reactive to Proactive

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Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 932