The Waters Around You Have Grown: Discovering Staten Island's Past through Protecting its Future

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.

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, and reverse shoreline erosion, as well as other coastal actions.

Per Section 106 of NHPA, archaeologists completed an offshore geomorphological investigation and shoreline subsurface testing and discovered traces of the now submerged former coastline before the dramatic sea level rise that followed the end of the last ice age and areas sensitive for historic resources eroding along the coastline.

It is certainly ironic that these submerged ancient and historic resources were only discovered due to a resiliency project initiated to prevent the inundation of Staten Island’s contemporary and future occupation.

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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Spatial Coverage

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 1010