The role of geoarchaeology and geophysics in cultural mitigation for offshore wind development, part II: Towards a best practices approach

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Geoarchaeology Within the Context of Cultural Resource Management (CRM) Today (Part Two)" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Underwater heritage spans human history, from submerged landscapes to tangible remains of water- and aircraft. Cultural resource assessments generally adequately address tangible heritage in the marine record. Identifying ‘sites’ in a terrestrial context typically relies on artifact presence, while the scale of offshore archaeological investigation is often limited to the landscape level. Marine archaeologists review and assess project geophysical and geotechnical survey data, resulting in archaeological assessments reviewed by government agencies and Tribal stakeholders.

Despite technological advances, marine archaeologists are typically limited to identifying portions of submerged landscapes, rather than discrete sites, while the broader landscapes containing these areas may already be significant to stakeholders. Cultural heritage laws require identification and avoidance of any potentially significant resources, but avoiding an entire paleolandscape during offshore development is often unfeasible. Archaeologists must develop cultural mitigations appropriate to both the scope and significance of these project landscapes. Meaningful mitigations can only be developed in coordination with open dialogues about applied methodologies and their limitations. This paper will explore the challenges associated with the practice of geoarchaeology as cultural mitigation and the theoretical foundations for interpreting submerged landscape data with respect to cultural research questions.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 90th Annual Meeting, Denver, CO (2025)   •
• Geoarchaeology Within the Context of Cultural Resource Management (CRM) Today (Part Two)

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 51775