Monitoring, Planning, and Treating Archaeological Sites for Climate Change

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Beyond Triage: Prioritizing Responses to Climate Change Impacts on Archaeological Resources" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The Fort Eustis portion of Joint Base Langley-Eustis is a peninsula of 8,000 acres bounded by Skiffes Creek, the Warwick River, and the James River on Virginia's coastal plain. The installation has 233 identified archaeological sites. Thirty-one sites are subject to erosion by the surrounding waterways. Beginning in 2010, the installation instituted a site monitoring program to document the physical status of the sites. Data from that program revealed many sites were being impacted by erosion. The installation developed a system to quantify current and potential future erosion damage for the 31 sites being damaged, as well as a system to prioritize and triage the sites for future study and treatment. Since developing the system, the installation has recorded erosion data to verify the model, worked to identify sites warranting stabilization, and stabilized significant sites. Additional analysis of the types of sites being threatened indicate a disproportionate number of Woodland period sites (1200 BCE–1600 CE) being impacted by erosion than was expected, a finding that the installation is accounting for as it plans for future preservation activities in consultation with federally recognized Native American tribes with ties to the installation.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Beyond Triage: Prioritizing Responses to Climate Change Impacts on Archaeological Resources   •
• Society for American Archaeology 86th Annual Meeting, Online (2021)

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 32823