Heritage at Risk

Maine Middens

Maine’s coastal heritage spans thousands of years, and begins with the Indigenous peoples who have relied on the rich resources of the region’s ocean, coastline, marshes, and adjacent forests. The record of their occupation and the environment in which they lived is preserved in shell middens. However, these valuable archives are disappearing as sea-level rise and changing weather patterns impact the Maine coast.

The  Maine Midden Minders  seek to engage local citizens and Tribal members individually and as part of conservation organizations to monitor and document change at shell middens along the coast, and to preserve shell midden information in a database to be used by researchers and cultural resource managers.

Howard W. Middleton Schooner

This 145 ft., 560-ton schooner hit a submerged reef off the mouth of Spurwink River while transporting coal in 1897.

The schooner is exposed by low tides and inundated again every high tide, while the vessel remains deeply embedded. Additionally, over the past century, sea level has risen at this site at a rate of 1.9mm/yr.

Because of risk from sea level rise and increased storminess, the local community actively participates in beach management and photographic and monitoring of the wreck as pieces of the vessel naturally fall off.

East Point Peninsula, New Jersey

The East Point peninsula, located along the Northeast coast of the Delaware Bay, encompasses cultural resources spanning the late Paleoindian period through 19th century, and the second oldest lighthouse in New Jersey. These sites are located along a rapidly eroding shoreline and are threatened by sea level rise, coastal erosion and flooding due to storm surge.

Much of this ancient landscape has already been buried under salt marsh sediments. Future projections using the IPCC Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) project that this landscape will be inundated by sea level rise by the year 2080.

After the dune system was breached by a nor’easter in 2018, the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection installed a 900-foot sand-filled "geotube" around the shoreline as temporary protection from erosion and flooding. Meanwhile the WCU Delaware Bay Climate and Archaeology Project continues to monitor shoreline recession, reconstruct changes to the surrouding marshes, and assess site vulnerability.

Pockey Island

Pockoy Island Shell Rings is a 4,300-year-old site located on Botany Bay Plantation Heritage Preserve, a South Carolina Department of Natural Resources (SCDNR) managed area on Edisto Island. Pockoy is experiencing a rapid rate of erosion of about 15.5 meters per year.

Shell Bluff Landing

Along Florida’s 8,000 miles of shoreline, nearly 4,000 known archaeological sites are at risk from climate change impacts including Shell Bluff Landing, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, containing evidence of around 6,000 years of human occupation up through the Menorcan well constructed during the Second Spanish Period, 1784-1821 (circular coquina well behind timber framing to protect the feature).

Through Heritage Monitoring Scouts (HMS Florida), Florida Public Archaeology Network staff and volunteers documented changes at Shell Bluff Landing over the course of a year. The bluff has lost up to 20.8 meters in 30 years along the southernmost point. FPAN will continue to work with the Guana Tolomato Matanzas Research Reserve and HMS Scouts to help monitor and document the rapid rate of site loss.

Ponte Vedra Beach Shrimp Boat

South Ponte Vedra Beach faces erosion from storms, inundation, waves, and development projects that threaten existing resources. South Ponte Vedra Beach has experienced significant loss of beach and dune width since 2007, receding an average of 1.3 ft/yr, adding pressure to existing structures and prompting the designation of two miles of the beach as critically eroded. Within this dynamic environment, wreckage of a historical shrimp boat has been a regular occurrence for at least 25 years.

Exposed material was found sticking out of the dune after a nor’easter system came through the area October 14-15, 2013. The exposed frames and depth to keel were recorded with some excavation and was confirmed to be the remains of a shrimp boat. After the remains were recorded and sampled in 2013, LAMP archaeologists reburied the wreckage. But upon survey of the beach in June 2016, the wreckage was again slightly exposed following a late spring storm in the region; approximately 11.9 ft. of the vessel extended out of the dune and was surveyed by drone and scaled drawings. 

The reburial in 2013 and hurricane-induced burial in 2016 can preserve the integrity of the vessel, and also prevent issues that arise from access. However, if the wreck is permanently lost due to the changes in the dune system, the information documented in 2013 and 2016 provide record of this historical vessel type as well as environmental changes.

Estate Little Princess, USVI

Over the last decade, rising sea levels, earthquakes and hurricanes have posed severe threats to heritage sites in the Caribbean. During the summer of 2017, hurricanes Irma and Maria damaged several sites on the island of St. Croix, and the 2018 and 2019 hurricane seasons brought continued heavy rains and damage.

The Estate Little Princess is an 18th century Danish sugar plantation that, at its height, encompassed 200 acres of land and housed 141 enslaved Africans. Currently the regional headquarters for the Nature Conservancy, the site is frequently subject to heavy winds and rain from hurricanes. Long term damage from shoreline erosion and rising water levels are projected.

Post hurricane assessment was initiated in 2017 by members of the Society of Black Archaeologists, who discovered that areas of the site under tree cover have fared better, suggesting that leaving existing tree cover at the site is a protective measure.

Fethaland

Fethaland was a base for deep sea (haaf) fishing from at least the eighteenth century. Crews operated six-oared open boats (sixareens), traveling many miles to catch cod on long lines, then brought ashore for processing on the stony beaches. Haaf fishing was seasonal, and the small houses were occupied from May to August, while other buildings were used for storage and supplies.

Located at the far north of Shetland’s main island, Fethaland is exposed to huge storms and massive North Atlantic seas. The site is vulnerable to sea level rise, and extreme high tides and storm surges. Heavy rainfall and strong winds damage the roofless dry-stone buildings that, designed for seasonal occupation, are becoming increasingly unsound.

The local community, working with local and national heritage bodies, conducted a structural integrity survey. The team used a laser scanner to create a 3D model of the landscape, and the interior and exterior of each of the thirty buildings. An annotated photographic survey of each building shows areas of weakness. Archival research charted the development of the fishing station and comparative images showed how Fethaland has changed since it was originally photographed in the 1800s. This information forms the basis of an interactive display in Shetland Museum. Visitors learn more about this lost industry by navigating through a gaming version of the 3D model, clicking on hotspots and locating virtual objects based on actual display items from the Museum.

Brora Salt Pans

In 1598, Lady Jean Gordon, Countess of Sutherland built the first salt pans at Brora and worked the most northerly coal seams in Britain to supply them. Thus began Brora’s long relationship with coal and salt. The salt provided much needed cash for an estate on the edge of bankruptcy in a period of famine and constant feuding, in part caused by the effects of the Little Ice Age (1500-1850). The remains of Jean’s pan houses were exposed in 1869.

Community led excavations of the endangered site has resulted in new knowledge about an early industrial enterprise in the Highlands. The eroding building turned out to be the girnel (store), office and accommodation for the salters. It holds the stories of the salters and of Brora’s place, for a brief period, in an international network. The earliest glass known in the Highlands, probably imported from France was found here. Salt made here was exported to Holland, the Baltic and England. A thick layer of spent coal from the pan hearths is an archaeological marker of the beginnings of our fossil-fueled anthropocene era. 

The archaeological remains tell the story of the very beginning of the use of fossil fuels for industrial development, providing a long view of one of the causes of anthropogenic climate change. The action taken by Brora residents to rescue information from their eroding coastal heritage is a continuing source of local pride.

Loch Fleet

Two intertidal boat graveyards on Scotland’s east coast encompass the remains of late 19th - early 20th century wooden sailing drifters which formed the herring fleets of the local communities. Sitting abandoned on the shore for over 100 years, inundated at every high tide, the fragile wooden vessels are deteriorating through the natural processes of decay, exacerbated by warming seas, rising sea levels and changes in biological activity on the boats’ timbers.

As the wooden boats and metal fastenings holding them together decay, a tipping point is reached when recognizable hulls become loose collections of timbers on the foreshore. Although this is inevitable and natural for such intertidal remains, the impacts of climate change, warmer seas and changing patterns of destructive marine life will intensify and accelerate the process. The local herring fishery has passed out of living memory and the physical remains are among the last reminders of this once-thriving industry. As they vanish, the stories of these fishing communities will also fade.

Community initiated archaeological survey has created a record of these now-rare but once ubiquitous boats as their deteriorating condition approaches complete loss. Archival records and local histories also capture the stories behind these boat graveyards, correcting a misconception that the abandonment of the fleet dated to the outbreak of the First World War and instead illustrated the loss of a vital local industry in the face of technological developments and the responses of the communities at period of great social and economic change in the early 20th century.

Orford Ness

The site is a 19th century watch house and 20th century military structure about 20m from the coast edge. Once home for secretive military research, the extensive natural habitat and 80 buildings are cared for by the National Trust. The watch house is mid-19th century and was armour plated in 1915. The mysterious concrete structure dates to the Cold War; remains of electrics and a single historic photograph suggest it was for ballistics or radar trials

The site sits on a shingle shelf they sit on is incredibly dynamic, with up to 8m erosion and deposition a year and these structures are now in imminent danger of collapse. The shingle shelf is incredibly dynamic and can see up to 8m of erosion and deposition in a year, with debris from structures along the coast edge dragged out to sea by one storm and thrown back up by the next.

Volunteers have created a 1:100 plan of the site, 1:20 elevation drawings of the Admiralty structure and a photographic record including digital 3D models. They upload periodic conditions reports to an online app. A drone flight is planned to capture a final wave of information before the structures fall into the sea.

Thames Discovery

For much of the last millennium the Thames foreshore in the central London area has been a hive of activity, thousands of people employed in loading and unloading vessels, building and breaking ships, using the Thames for transport, fishing, washing and watering. Other features range from a late Mesolithic structure through a Bronze Age bridge or jetty, Iron age structures, Saxon fishtraps, Medieval and post-medieval jetties, causeways, stairs and river defences to evidence for shipbuilding and breaking.

archaeological sites on both banks of the Thames are under threat from increased river flow due to climate change and wash from passing vessels traveling at high speeds. 

Each year throughout the summer months centrally organized targeted fieldwork sessions undertake detailed recording of threatened sites, while the volunteers have formed self-organising Foreshore Recording and Observation Groups (FROGs) to monitor erosion and the emergence and disappearance of features along the river.

Dinas Dinlle Fort

Dinas Dinlle is a coastal hillfort set on a hill of glacial drift sediments overlooking the Irish Sea. Probably Iron Age (Celtic) in date, chance finds of Roman coins and pottery and its mention in Early Medieval Welsh legends suggest a long occupation. The hillfort is protected as Scheduled Monument and the hill is a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI).

Ongoing coastal erosion has removed around a third of the monument since it was constructed with up to 40 meters lost in the last century. Assuming future rates of erosion will be higher than those observed due to climate change, Dinas Dinlle could be completely lost within 500 years.

Dinas Dinlle is a baseline monitoring site for the European-funded Ireland-Wales CHERISH Project. CHERISH has included gathering highly accurate 3D data to monitor the eroding cliff edge using terrestrial laser scanning and UAV/drone photogrammetry. This provides an accurate baseline for future study, while repeat monitoring visits by CHERISH and a team of dedicated local residents also highlights seasonal change.