Geomorphons for Assessing Archaeological Risk from Landslides

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2025: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Landslides pose a significant threat to both known and undiscovered archaeological sites worldwide. Despite this risk, landslide susceptibility maps rarely incorporate factors to determine landslide threat to the archaeological record. This gap arises partly from the inherent challenges in predicting landslides and partly from the archaeological community's lack of access to and the slow adoption of user-friendly and cost-effective geospatial tools for assessing disaster impacts on cultural heritage. This presentation introduces two free and accessible geospatial approaches for evaluating the susceptibility of archaeological resources in landslide-prone areas. By demonstrating these techniques, archaeologists and heritage managers can access practical tools for assessing the risk of landslides to archaeology. Preliminary results show that these methods are both reliable and easy to use. This research not only enhances the ability of archaeologists to protect archaeological sites but also contributes to disaster risk management by offering new insights into the intersection of disaster and cultural heritage preservation. The case studies included in for demonstrating these methodologies in this work are the Island of Hawai’i and a regionally relevant example from Colorado.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 90th Annual Meeting, Denver, CO (2025)   •
• SAA 2025: Individual Abstracts

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 50805