Identifying Submerged Cultural Maritime Landscapes Using New Technologies and Interdisciplinary Partnerships

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Exploration-Forward Archaeology Through Community-Driven Research", at the 2024 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

Sea-level rise following the Last Glacial Maximum submerged millions of square kilometers of coastal landscapes around the world, complicating efforts to understand the paleolandscapes, paleoecology, human dispersals, and the cultural history of these now drowned regions. This situation is particularly troublesome in the Southern California Bight on the eastern Pacific Coast where sea-level rise inundated thousands of square kilometers of coastal terrain, including entire islands. Recognizing that these spaces are critical to understanding our human past, recent interdisciplinary research is focusing on the area’s submerged paleolandscapes to identify how rapidly shifting habitats and evolving landscapes affected human migration, settlement, and resource strategies during periods of drastic climatic change. This marine social science research is informed and supported by geological, biological, and geophysical marine science disciplines as well as traditional indigenous knowledge and considers both the landscape and seascape as a continuous ancient maritime cultural space.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for Historical Archaeology 2024   •
• Exploration-Forward Archaeology Through Community-Driven Research

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Nicole Haddow