What Happens After a Storm? A Case Study of Fast and Slow Moving Shoreline Erosion on Cumberland Island National Seashore, Georgia, USA

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "The Intersection Between Natural and Cultural Heritage and the Pressing Threats to Both", at the 2025 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

What happens to a cultural resource after it has eroded from its original context, whether from gradual climate impacts or from a punctuated event like a tropical storm? Brick Kiln Bluff, a quickly eroding estuarine multicomponent site, was previously the living place of Deptford, Mocama, Spanish, and Gullah-Geechee people. Using a naturally deposited pig skeleton and a selection of Deptford, Altamaha/San Marcos, and industrial pottery post-depositional processes were simulated to determine the lateral and horizontal movement of artifacts over two 35-day study periods. Results indicate a surprising lack of movement despite exposure to tropical storms, spring tides, full moons, and strong currents from daily diurnal tides. While the context surrounding these materials was immediately removed with the tides, and thus much of the site-specific interpretative potential, sedimentation of many artifacts occurred quickly, indicating a high potential for diagnostic data recovery that may contribute to larger-scale multi-site synthetic and comparative studies.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• The Intersection Between Natural and Cultural Heritage and the Pressing Threats to Both   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2025

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Nicole Haddow