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PSA: I just saw a report saying over 1,000 sites are at risk from climate change right now
I mean, I was reading this paper from a university group and the number hit me. They listed 1,247 known archaeological sites, from coastal shell mounds to desert ruins, that could be gone in under 10 years because of rising seas and bigger storms. It's not just famous places, it's a lot of smaller sites that haven't even been fully dug yet. They gave the example of a Native American village site in Louisiana that's basically washing away now. We're going to lose so much history if we don't record it fast. Has anyone else's local area or project had to deal with this kind of urgent salvage work?
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wood.uma3mo ago
Could be gone in under 10 years" seems like a big guess to me. Sites have survived for centuries through all sorts of weather.
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wood.uma3mo ago
It's scary how fast things seem to be changing now.
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iris_schmidt19d ago
You said "sites have survived for centuries" but how many of them were dealing with 120 degree heat waves followed by flash floods and wildfires in the same year? I'm not trying to be difficult, I really want to know what makes you think old construction methods can handle what we're throwing at them now. You see what's happening to the coastal towns here in the Northeast - places that stood for 200 years are getting wrecked by one bad storm season after another. So what specifically about those "centuries old" sites makes you believe they're built for this new normal?
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nelson.wren3mo ago
Look at me trying to sound like a climate scientist over here. I mean, I'm the guy who gets nervous if the forecast says rain and I left my tools outside. Maybe it's just me, but watching the news lately makes a decade seem pretty possible for some of these places. The old stuff was built for a different world, you know? The weather they're getting now is a whole new game.
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