The Trolley Problem: Which Ones Do We Save?

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Bridging the Land and the Sea: Documenting and Assessing Climate Impacts on North Carolina’s Coastal Heritage", at the 2025 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

Even without the threat of sea level rise, many coastal archaeological sites are under threat of, or are, actively eroding away; sea level rise and the increasing frequency and intensity of storm events will only exacerbate the issue. With all of the known, and unknown, archaeological sites along our shores, an overriding question is how do land managing agencies make the best use of limited funds to manage these impacts to our archaeological heritage and make the choices of which resources to protect (and conversely, which ones to allow to disappear). This paper examines the findings of the North Carolina Office of State Archaeology’s Shorescape project and discusses the various management strategies that the state could pursue, including examples of how other agencies are managing similar issues.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Bridging the Land and the Sea: Documenting and Assessing Climate Impacts on North Carolina’s Coastal Heritage   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2025

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Nicole Haddow