A Critical Review of Shoreline Modeling Strategies to Identify Known and Unrecorded Cultural Heritage Sites

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Methods for Monitoring Heritage at Risk Sites in a Rapidly Changing Environment", at the 2023 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

In this paper, I critically assess models that predict how shoreline change will destroy cultural resources on Southeastern Atlantic seaboard in parts of South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida, USA. Archaeological site suitability modeling is often synonymous with environmental determinism. However, in a race against rising sea levels and shifting shorelines that we will lose, archaeologists need to work with available tools despite tensions between archaeological datasets and statistical laws. Archaeology is an inherently flexible and multi-disciplinary way to study the past. To preserve information from the past, archaeologists creating digital models must also become computer scientists, ecologists, cartographers, and geologists to digitally and actually observe the intersection of modern climate phenomena and cultural resources. To create accurate models for cultural heritage risk assessments, archaeologists must learn some of the nuance of modern environmental systems to best program models for future change.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Methods for Monitoring Heritage at Risk Sites in a Rapidly Changing Environment   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2023

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Nicole Haddow