Vanishing Past: Climate Change, Sea Level Rise, and the Imperiled Future of Coastal Archaeological Heritage

Abstract

Anthropogenic climate change poses an unprecedented threat to coastal and floodplain archaeological heritage worldwide. Rising sea levels, accelerated coastal erosion, intensified storm events, and shifting precipitation patterns are destroying irreplaceable evidence of human history at alarming rates. This interdisciplinary study examines the intersection of climate science, archaeology, heritage management, and environmental justice to assess the scope of this crisis and propose actionable responses. Drawing on recent case studies—from submerged Neolithic settlements in the North Sea to Bronze Age sites exposed by drought in Iraq, and eroding shell middens along North American coasts—this paper surveys the mechanisms of climate-driven heritage loss and evaluates current risk assessment methodologies. We present an integrated framework for prioritizing sites for documentation and intervention, incorporating both scientific metrics and ethical considerations of cultural significance and community rights. The analysis reveals stark disparities in vulnerability and preservation capacity, with sites in the Global South and those belonging to Indigenous and marginalized communities facing disproportionate risk. We argue that heritage preservation must be understood as a climate justice issue, requiring urgent policy reform, increased funding for rapid-response archaeology, and meaningful engagement with descendant communities. The paper concludes with recommendations for adaptive management strategies, international cooperation frameworks, and research priorities that can help safeguard humanity’s shared past in an era of accelerating environmental change.

Introduction

A Crisis Unfolding at the Water’s Edge

For millennia, humans have gravitated toward coastlines and river valleys, establishing settlements where water provided sustenance, transportation, and trade. Today, an estimated 44 percent of the world’s population lives within 150 kilometers of the coast, and this concentration of human activity has deep historical roots. ¹ Archaeological sites documenting thousands of years of coastal occupation now face an existential threat: the very waters that once sustained these communities are rising to claim their remains. Climate change, driven primarily by anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, is accelerating sea level rise, intensifying coastal erosion, and altering precipitation patterns in ways that endanger countless archaeological sites worldwide.

The scale of potential loss is staggering. A 2018 study estimated that with one meter of sea level rise—a scenario increasingly likely within this century under current emission trajectories—approximately 13,000 archaeological sites in the United States alone would be affected, including 1,000 sites listed on the National Register of Historic Places. ² Globally, the number of threatened sites reaches into the hundreds of thousands, encompassing every coastal region and representing the full spectrum of human cultural development. These sites are not merely academic curiosities; they are irreplaceable archives of human adaptation, innovation, and cultural expression, often holding profound significance for living communities whose identities remain intertwined with ancestral landscapes.

The crisis extends beyond simple inundation. Increased wave action erodes coastal archaeological deposits, scattering artifacts and destroying stratigraphic integrity. Storm surges penetrate inland, destabilizing sediments that have preserved organic materials for millennia. In arid regions, changing precipitation patterns alternately expose sites through drought or destroy them through unprecedented flooding. Permafrost thaw in Arctic regions releases archaeological materials that rapidly deteriorate upon exposure. Meanwhile, rising water tables compromise the anoxic conditions that preserve waterlogged sites, initiating irreversible decay.

Scope and Objectives

This paper adopts an explicitly interdisciplinary approach to examine how climate change threatens coastal archaeological heritage and how scholars, policymakers, and communities can respond effectively to this challenge. We integrate insights from climate science, archaeology, geomorphology, cultural heritage management, and environmental justice studies to present a comprehensive assessment of current threats and future risks. Our objectives are fourfold:

1. To document the mechanisms by which climate change impacts archaeological sites, drawing on recent case studies from diverse geographic and cultural contexts;
2. To evaluate existing methodologies for assessing heritage vulnerability and prioritizing sites for intervention;
3. To propose an integrated framework for rapid-response documentation, preservation, and adaptive management that balances scientific, practical, and ethical considerations;
4. To examine how climate justice principles should inform heritage preservation policy, ensuring equitable protection for sites significant to marginalized and Indigenous communities.

Throughout this analysis, we maintain that archaeological heritage preservation must be recognized as a climate adaptation priority, not an ancillary concern. The knowledge encoded in archaeological sites—about past climate adaptations, sustainable resource management, and social resilience—may prove invaluable as contemporary societies confront environmental change. Moreover, the cultural and spiritual significance of these sites to descendant communities demands that we act decisively to prevent their loss.

Integration of Disciplines

Archaeology Meets Climate Science

Understanding and addressing climate threats to archaeological heritage requires synthesizing knowledge across traditionally distinct academic domains. Climate science provides essential data on the rate and magnitude of environmental changes, while archaeology contributes expertise in site identification, assessment, and documentation. The integration of these disciplines has accelerated in recent years, producing sophisticated predictive models and risk assessment tools.

Climate projections from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) form the foundation for heritage risk assessment. The IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report (2021) projects global mean sea level rise of 0.43 to 0.84 meters by 2100 under intermediate emission scenarios, with higher rises possible under continued high emissions or if ice sheet dynamics prove more sensitive than current models suggest. ³ However, sea level rise varies regionally due to factors including ocean circulation patterns, gravitational effects from ice sheet loss, and vertical land movements. Archaeological risk assessment must therefore incorporate regional climate models rather than relying solely on global averages.

Beyond sea level rise, archaeologists must consider multiple climate change impacts. Increased storminess and wave heights amplify coastal erosion, while changing precipitation patterns affect site preservation through altered hydrology. In permafrost regions, thawing exposes previously frozen organic archaeological materials to rapid decomposition. Climate-driven vegetation changes can both reveal and endanger buried sites. The temporal dimension is equally critical: while some impacts manifest gradually over decades, storm events can destroy sites overnight, demanding both long-term planning and rapid-response capabilities.

Geographic Information Systems and Spatial Analysis

Geographic Information Systems (GIS) have become indispensable tools for assessing heritage vulnerability at landscape and regional scales. By integrating archaeological site databases with elevation models, coastal geomorphology data, and climate projections, researchers can identify sites at greatest risk and prioritize preservation efforts accordingly. Vulnerability mapping typically combines physical exposure (based on elevation, distance from coast, and geomorphological setting) with site significance (determined through archaeological assessment and community consultation).

Recent methodological advances include probabilistic risk modeling that accounts for uncertainty in both climate projections and archaeological data. Rather than producing binary classifications of “threatened” versus “safe,” these approaches generate probability distributions showing the likelihood of impact under different scenarios. Such nuanced assessments better support decision-making under uncertainty, acknowledging that both climate futures and site locations (especially for unmapped sites) involve inherent uncertainties. ⁴

Remote sensing technologies complement GIS analysis by enabling site detection and monitoring across vast areas. Satellite imagery, LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging), and aerial photography can reveal changes in coastal morphology, vegetation patterns indicating subsurface archaeology, and the progressive erosion of known sites. Time-series analysis of multispectral imagery documents rates of change, informing predictions about when sites may be lost entirely. Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs or drones) provide high-resolution imagery at lower cost than traditional aerial photography, democratizing access to these tools.

Cultural Heritage Management and Conservation Science

The heritage management field contributes frameworks for significance assessment, stakeholder engagement, and conservation decision-making. Not all threatened sites can be preserved in place; practitioners must therefore develop criteria for prioritizing intervention. Traditional approaches emphasize factors like site age, artifact richness, research potential, and designation status (e.g., World Heritage Sites or national monuments). However, these criteria have been criticized for privileging monumental architecture and sites connected to dominant cultural narratives while marginalizing vernacular landscapes and sites significant to Indigenous and minority communities.

Conservation science informs practical preservation strategies. For sites that can be protected in place, options include physical barriers (seawalls, revetments), sediment management (beach nourishment, dune restoration), and hydrological interventions. However, hard engineering solutions often prove prohibitively expensive and may simply transfer erosion to adjacent areas. “Soft” approaches using vegetation and natural coastal processes align better with ecological sustainability but may offer less protection. For sites where in situ preservation is impossible, excavation represents a last resort—rescue archaeology that recovers information even as the physical site is destroyed. ⁵

An emerging approach emphasizes documentation as preservation. When physical preservation proves impossible, creating comprehensive records ensures that knowledge survives even if material remains do not. Digital documentation technologies—including photogrammetry, 3D scanning, and immersive virtual reality—enable increasingly sophisticated recording. These digital archives serve research, education, and cultural continuity, though they cannot fully replace the loss of physical places and objects.

Environmental Justice and Heritage Rights

Environmental justice scholarship examines how environmental harms and benefits are distributed across social groups, consistently finding that marginalized communities bear disproportionate burdens. This framework applies directly to heritage loss: the archaeological sites most vulnerable to climate change, and least likely to receive protective intervention, often belong to Indigenous peoples, racial minorities, and economically disadvantaged communities.

Several mechanisms produce these disparities. First, Indigenous and marginalized communities frequently occupy marginal lands, including flood-prone areas and eroding coastlines, due to historical dispossession and economic exclusion. Their ancestral sites share this vulnerability. Second, official heritage designation processes often underrepresent sites significant to these communities, making threatened sites “invisible” to preservation systems. Third, preservation resources flow disproportionately toward sites valorized by dominant cultures—classical ruins, colonial architecture, and monumental structures—rather than toward vernacular landscapes, shell middens, or unmarked burial grounds. ⁶

Indigenous archaeology and community-based heritage management offer alternative paradigms that center descendant communities in decision-making. These approaches recognize that heritage significance extends beyond academic or aesthetic criteria to encompass spiritual, genealogical, and territorial dimensions. From this perspective, the question “whose past gets preserved?” becomes central to any ethical response to climate-threatened heritage. Meaningful engagement requires recognizing Indigenous sovereignty, respecting traditional knowledge, and supporting community-led preservation initiatives rather than imposing external priorities.

Methodology and Approach

Analytical Framework

This study employs a mixed-methods approach combining literature review, case study analysis, spatial risk assessment, and ethical analysis. We synthesized published research on climate impacts to archaeological sites, focusing on peer-reviewed studies from the past decade supplemented by reports from heritage agencies and international organizations. This literature review identified both documented cases of climate-driven heritage loss and methodological approaches to vulnerability assessment.

Our case study selection aimed for geographic, temporal, and cultural diversity, encompassing sites from six continents and spanning from the Paleolithic to the recent historical period. Cases were chosen to illustrate different impact mechanisms (inundation, erosion, drought exposure, permafrost thaw) and different heritage values (monumental versus vernacular, well-documented versus understudied, officially designated versus community-identified). For each case, we examined the physical processes driving site degradation, preservation responses attempted or proposed, and the stakeholders involved.

Spatial analysis utilized publicly available data on archaeological site locations, topography, coastal geomorphology, and sea level rise projections. We acknowledge significant limitations in this analysis: comprehensive archaeological site databases do not exist for most regions, and those that do exist often exclude sites on private land, Indigenous territories, or areas with limited research history. Our risk estimates should therefore be understood as conservative minimums rather than complete assessments.

Risk Assessment Criteria

We evaluated site vulnerability using a multi-criteria framework that integrates physical exposure and cultural significance. Physical exposure incorporates:

• Elevation: Sites below projected high tide levels for 2050, 2100, and 2150 under RCP 4.5 and RCP 8.5 emission scenarios;
• Coastal proximity: Distance from current shoreline and position relative to erosion-prone landforms;
• Geomorphological setting: Site substrate and surrounding landscape features affecting erosion susceptibility;
• Climate hazard exposure: Vulnerability to increased storm surge, precipitation extremes, or permafrost thaw based on regional climate projections.

Cultural significance assessment proved more challenging, as significance is contextual and contested. We considered multiple dimensions:

• Research value: Potential to address significant archaeological questions, based on site type, preservation quality, and research context;
• Cultural importance: Significance to descendant communities, Indigenous peoples, or other stakeholders, acknowledging that non-archaeological values may outweigh research considerations;
• Educational and public value: Potential for interpretation, tourism, or public engagement;
• Representativeness: Whether the site type is well-documented elsewhere or represents an understudied cultural tradition.

Crucially, we recognize that external researchers cannot objectively determine cultural significance. Our framework therefore emphasizes the necessity of community consultation and collaborative decision-making, particularly for sites connected to living cultural traditions.

Ethical Considerations

This research confronts ethical complexities inherent in heritage preservation under resource constraints. Not all threatened sites can be saved; choices must be made about where to direct limited preservation resources. These choices have profound consequences for whose history is remembered and whose is forgotten, making them fundamentally political rather than purely technical decisions.

We adopted several ethical principles to guide our analysis. First, we prioritize meaningful engagement with descendant communities and Indigenous peoples, recognizing their rights to ancestral heritage as articulated in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Second, we explicitly consider how preservation decisions may perpetuate or challenge existing inequities in heritage recognition. Third, we emphasize transparency about uncertainty and value judgments, avoiding the false objectivity that can mask political choices as technical necessity. Fourth, we recognize that heritage preservation represents only one dimension of climate justice, and must not divert resources from adaptation measures that protect living communities.

Results

Case Studies: Climate Change Impacts Across Diverse Contexts

The North Sea: Submerged Landscapes Resurface

The shallow waters of the North Sea conceal Doggerland, a vast Mesolithic landscape that connected Britain to continental Europe until approximately 8,000 years ago. As sea levels rose following the Last Glacial Maximum, this region—once home to hunter-gatherer populations—gradually submerged. For decades, fishing trawlers have recovered Mesolithic artifacts from the seafloor, including stone tools, worked bone, and faunal remains, providing tantalizing glimpses of this lost world. ⁷

Climate change now threatens these submerged sites through multiple mechanisms. Increased storminess intensifies seafloor sediment disturbance, while offshore development projects—including wind farms and cable installations—physically impact archaeological deposits. Paradoxically, the same climate-driven processes that endanger these sites occasionally expose new discoveries: severe storms in 2013 and 2018 eroded coastal sediments, revealing remarkably preserved Mesolithic footprints and wooden structures along British coasts that were part of Doggerland’s terrestrial margins. ⁸

The Doggerland case illustrates the complex relationship between climate change and archaeological visibility. While rising seas initially preserved these sites through inundation, subsequent environmental changes now facilitate their destruction. Moreover, the sites’ submarine location places them outside most heritage protection frameworks, which evolved to protect terrestrial sites. Maritime archaeology lacks the funding and infrastructure of terrestrial archaeology, despite the vast archaeological record beneath coastal waters.

Iraqi Mesopotamia: Drought Exposes Ancient Cities

In 2018, severe drought reduced water levels in the Mosul Dam reservoir in Iraqi Kurdistan, exposing ruins of a Bronze Age city believed to date to the Mittani Empire (circa 1550-1350 BCE). The site, located in what is now the reservoir bed, had been submerged since the dam’s construction in the 1980s. The unexpected exposure enabled a two-month emergency excavation that documented palace structures, fortification walls, and numerous cuneiform tablets before rising waters again submerged the site. ⁹

This case exemplifies how climate change—manifesting as intensified drought in this region—can temporarily increase site accessibility while simultaneously threatening site preservation. Repeated wet-dry cycles accelerate deterioration of mudbrick architecture and organic materials. Moreover, exposure creates security challenges: looting of archaeological sites intensified across Iraq during recent conflicts, and newly exposed sites in reservoir margins prove particularly vulnerable.

The ethical dimensions are equally complex. The dam that submerged this site displaced thousands of people and inundated countless archaeological sites, most never properly documented. Climate-driven drought now offers a limited window to record some of these sites, but this opportunity stems from water scarcity that threatens contemporary communities. Prioritizing archaeological documentation in a context of humanitarian crisis raises difficult questions about resource allocation and research ethics.

North American Coasts: Eroding Shell Middens and Indigenous Heritage

Along the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of North America, shell middens—accumulations of mollusk shells, faunal remains, tools, and other cultural materials from centuries or millennia of repeated occupation—face accelerating erosion. These sites document thousands of years of Indigenous coastal lifeways and hold profound significance for contemporary Indigenous communities. A 2017 survey of shell middens in the southeastern United States found that 32 percent showed evidence of recent erosion, with this proportion increasing to over 60 percent for sites within 100 meters of the current shoreline. ¹⁰

Climate change amplifies erosion through sea level rise, increased wave action, and more frequent severe storms. Hurricane Florence (2018) and Hurricane Dorian (2019) caused documented damage to numerous coastal archaeological sites in the Carolinas. Beyond physical destruction, erosion exposes human remains, creating distressing situations for descendant communities and raising questions about appropriate responses. Indigenous protocols may require reburial, but if erosion continues, reburied remains may simply erode again.

The shell midden crisis exemplifies environmental justice dimensions of heritage loss. These sites represent Indigenous presence and territorial claims in regions where Indigenous peoples faced historical dispossession and cultural suppression. Site loss thus compounds historical injustices while undermining contemporary Indigenous sovereignty and cultural continuity. Effective preservation requires respecting Indigenous authority over ancestral sites, supporting Indigenous-led monitoring and conservation, and addressing the broader climate vulnerabilities facing Indigenous coastal communities.

Arctic Permafrost: Thawing and Heritage Loss

Arctic regions are warming at approximately twice the global average rate, causing widespread permafrost thaw with dramatic consequences for archaeology. Permafrost has preserved organic materials—wood, leather, textiles, food remains—that would have decayed in temperate climates, creating uniquely informative archaeological assemblages. As permafrost thaws, these materials rapidly deteriorate upon exposure to oxygen, microbial activity, and temperature fluctuations.

Along Alaska’s Bering and Chukchi Sea coasts, Indigenous sites dating from the last several thousand years are eroding at rates exceeding one meter per year at some locations. Coastal erosion threatens not only archaeological sites but also contemporary Indigenous communities; several villages face relocation due to erosion and flooding. The site of Walakpa, an ancestral Iñupiat whaling village, has lost significant portions to erosion since the 1990s, destroying irreplaceable evidence of traditional maritime practices while threatening the contemporary community’s connection to ancestral places. ¹¹

The permafrost case highlights the temporal urgency of climate-threatened archaeology. Unlike gradual sea level rise measurable in millimeters per year, permafrost thaw can expose and destroy archaeological materials within a single summer season. This rapid pace demands responsive monitoring and documentation capacity that currently does not exist at appropriate scales. Moreover, many Arctic sites are located in remote areas accessible only during limited field seasons, compounding logistical challenges.

Pacific Islands: Cultures Facing Dual Threats

Low-lying Pacific islands face existential threats from sea level rise and storm intensification, endangering both contemporary communities and archaeological sites documenting thousands of years of maritime cultural development. In Micronesia and Polynesia, archaeological sites include settlement remains, agricultural features, ceremonial structures, and burial grounds spanning from initial colonization approximately 3,500 years ago through the historical period.

Kiribati, where much land lies less than two meters above current sea level, exemplifies the crisis. Storm surges increasingly inundate islands, while erosion reshapes coastlines and saltwater intrusion compromises freshwater resources. Archaeological sites, often located near coasts where settlement advantages remain unchanged over centuries, erode alongside contemporary communities. In 2015, Tropical Cyclone Pam devastated Vanuatu, destroying archaeological sites along with homes and infrastructure. ¹²

The Pacific islands case illustrates how heritage preservation cannot be separated from community adaptation and survival. When entire nations face potential displacement, archaeological documentation becomes intertwined with cultural survival, memory, and future territorial claims. Moreover, archaeological evidence of past climate adaptation—how Pacific Islanders successfully colonized diverse environments and navigated environmental changes—may inform contemporary resilience strategies, demonstrating heritage’s potential contributions to adaptation planning.

Global Risk Assessment: Quantifying the Threat

Synthesizing regional studies and spatial analyses reveals the global scale of climate threats to coastal archaeology. While comprehensive worldwide data remain unavailable, regional assessments provide sobering insights. In the United States, the aforementioned estimate of 13,000 sites threatened by one meter of sea level rise includes approximately 32,000 historic and prehistoric structures. The United Kingdom’s National Trust estimates that over 300 historic sites under its management face coastal erosion threats, while broader surveys suggest thousands of additional sites at risk. ¹³

Mediterranean coastlines, rich with archaeological sites from Phoenician, Greek, Roman, and subsequent civilizations, face combined threats from sea level rise, increased storm intensity, and mass tourism pressures exacerbated by climate-driven migration patterns. In North Africa and the Middle East, sea level rise threatens Nile Delta sites documenting millennia of Egyptian civilization, Phoenician ports along the Levantine coast, and countless other sites. Political instability and limited resources for heritage management compound these environmental threats.

Tropical and subtropical coasts face particularly severe risks due to monsoon intensification, tropical cyclone exposure, and rapid coastal development. In Southeast Asia, where archaeological research has historically been limited compared to other regions, the full extent of threatened heritage remains poorly documented. This knowledge gap itself represents an environmental justice issue: heritage in regions with limited research infrastructure faces loss before even being properly recognized.

These estimates likely represent significant underestimates of actual risk for several reasons. First, archaeological site inventories remain incomplete worldwide, particularly in regions with limited research history or restrictive access policies. Second, estimates typically focus on direct inundation, potentially underestimating erosion impacts and indirect effects like water table rise. Third, projections generally use moderate sea level rise scenarios; under high-emission pathways or with ice sheet instability, impacts could be substantially greater. Fourth, most assessments focus on officially designated sites, excluding the vast number of undesignated sites that may hold equal or greater significance.

Temporal Dynamics: Windows of Vulnerability

Climate impacts on archaeological sites unfold across multiple timescales. Gradual processes like mean sea level rise operate over decades to centuries, enabling planning and staged responses. Episodic events—major storms, extreme precipitation, heatwaves—can cause catastrophic damage in hours or days. Some impacts, like saltwater intrusion into coastal aquifers, manifest slowly until crossing thresholds beyond which rapid deterioration occurs.

This temporal complexity challenges preservation planning. Sites may appear stable for years or decades, creating false confidence, then deteriorate rapidly when thresholds are crossed or extreme events occur. Conversely, drought exposure offers brief windows when normally submerged sites become accessible, requiring rapid-response capabilities. Permafrost sites may stabilize temporarily during cool years, then degrade dramatically during warm summers.

Projections suggest that mid-century (2040-2060) represents a critical period when many currently stable sites will transition to active degradation. This timeline implies an urgency for baseline documentation: sites that can be recorded now, before degradation accelerates, preserve maximum information. The window for comprehensive documentation may be narrowing faster than preservation capacity is expanding.

Discussion

Preservation Strategies: A Hierarchy of Responses

Addressing climate threats to archaeological heritage requires diverse strategies tailored to specific contexts. We propose a hierarchical framework that prioritizes less invasive interventions while acknowledging that some sites cannot be preserved in place:

Prevention and Mitigation

The most effective preservation strategy is preventing climate change itself through aggressive emissions reduction. While this observation may seem obvious, it warrants emphasis: heritage preservation advocacy can and should reinforce climate action more broadly. Archaeological evidence of past climate impacts—including site abandonment, cultural transformation, and social collapse associated with environmental change—provides tangible illustrations of climate change consequences, potentially motivating action.

Beyond emissions reduction, coastal management practices can reduce localized threats. Beach nourishment, dune restoration, and wetland conservation provide coastal protection while offering ecological benefits. However, these interventions require sustained maintenance and may prove inadequate against accelerating sea level rise. Hard infrastructure like seawalls can protect specific sites but often proves expensive, transfers erosion to adjacent areas, and creates ecological degradation.

Monitoring and Early Warning

Systematic monitoring enables detection of site degradation before loss becomes catastrophic, creating opportunities for intervention. Monitoring programs combine remote sensing, periodic site visits, and community-based observation. Indigenous communities and local residents often detect site erosion earlier than external researchers, making community engagement essential for effective monitoring.

Early warning systems should trigger graduated responses based on threat severity. Minor erosion might warrant documentation enhancement, moderate degradation could justify stabilization measures, while imminent destruction necessitates rescue excavation. Currently, most regions lack monitoring systems adequate to these tasks, representing a critical gap in preservation infrastructure.

Documentation and Recording

When physical preservation proves impossible or impractical, comprehensive documentation preserves information even as sites are lost. Modern documentation techniques enable remarkable detail: photogrammetry produces three-dimensional models from photographs, terrestrial laser scanning captures millimeter-scale detail, and drone-based surveys document entire landscapes. These digital records support research, enable virtual site experiences, and preserve cultural connections for descendant communities.

However, documentation cannot fully replace physical sites. Digital records lack the contextual richness of places, the potential for future reinterpretation with new methods, and the emotional and spiritual significance that physical connection provides. Documentation should therefore be understood as compromise, not solution—preserving something of value while acknowledging irretrievable loss. ¹⁴

Managed Retreat and Salvage

For sites facing certain destruction, excavation represents a last resort. Rescue or salvage archaeology operates under time pressure, often with limited resources, recovering what can be preserved while accepting that much will be lost. Strategic excavation focuses on site elements most informative or vulnerable, using sampling strategies that maximize information return against time and budget constraints.

Excavation generates ethical challenges. Archaeological ethics traditionally favor site preservation for future investigation with improved methods. Climate change invalidates this principle for threatened sites: preserving sites for future study becomes impossible when sites face imminent destruction. However, excavation is destructive—the act of investigation eliminates the site as a physical entity. This paradox demands careful weighing of preservation ideals against pragmatic necessities.

Prioritization Frameworks: Making Difficult Choices

Limited resources make preservation triage inevitable. Some threatened sites will receive intervention while others are lost, making prioritization frameworks ethically consequential. Traditional approaches emphasize factors like site age, research potential, artifact richness, and official designation status. These criteria have been criticized for privileging elite perspectives and marginalizing vernacular heritage, particularly sites significant to Indigenous and minority communities.

We propose an alternative framework that explicitly incorporates equity considerations:

• Community significance: Priority for sites identified as significant by descendant communities, Indigenous peoples, or other stakeholders, respecting that cultural importance may outweigh conventional archaeological metrics;
• Research value: Potential to address significant questions, with emphasis on understudied cultures and periods rather than reinforcing existing research concentrations;
• Representativeness: Whether the site type is well-documented elsewhere; priority for unique or poorly understood site types;
• Urgency: Imminence and severity of threat, with rapidly eroding sites prioritized over those facing longer-term risks;
• Feasibility: Practical capacity for intervention given access, resources, and technical requirements;
• Justice considerations: Explicit consideration of whose heritage is being preserved, with priority for sites belonging to marginalized communities underrepresented in existing preservation systems.

Implementing this framework requires meaningful engagement with diverse stakeholders. Archaeologists cannot unilaterally determine community significance; descendant communities must participate substantively in decision-making. This engagement takes time and resources, potentially slowing response to urgent threats, yet remains ethically essential. The challenge lies in balancing thorough consultation against temporal urgency.

Policy and Governance Challenges

Current heritage protection frameworks were developed for stable environments, not contexts of rapid environmental change. Most heritage legislation emphasizes preventing harm from development projects—requiring archaeological assessment before construction—but provides limited guidance for addressing “natural” threats like erosion and inundation. Climate change thus exposes gaps in existing policy architecture.

International frameworks like the UNESCO World Heritage Convention provide recognition and prestige but limited enforcement mechanisms and inadequate resources for addressing climate threats. The Convention’s emphasis on “outstanding universal value” privileges monumental sites and dominant cultural narratives, potentially marginalizing vernacular heritage and sites significant to marginalized communities. Recent efforts to integrate climate adaptation into World Heritage management remain in early stages. ¹⁵

National and subnational policies vary dramatically in their attention to climate-threatened heritage. Some jurisdictions have developed proactive programs for monitoring and responding to coastal erosion, while others lack basic infrastructure for tracking site conditions. Federal systems face particular challenges coordinating across governmental levels, while Indigenous sovereignty complicates jurisdictional questions for sites on Indigenous lands.

Funding represents perhaps the most fundamental constraint. Heritage preservation competes with numerous other climate adaptation priorities—infrastructure protection, ecosystem conservation, community relocation—often unsuccessfully. Advocates must make compelling cases for heritage preservation while acknowledging that human safety and basic needs take precedence. Framing heritage as contributing to climate adaptation—by documenting past adaptations, supporting cultural resilience, and maintaining territorial connections—may strengthen preservation arguments.

Climate Justice and Heritage Equity

Environmental justice scholarship demonstrates that climate change impacts and adaptation resources are inequitably distributed, with marginalized communities facing disproportionate harm and receiving inadequate support. These disparities extend fully to heritage preservation. Archaeological sites significant to Indigenous peoples, racial minorities, and economically disadvantaged communities face elevated risk yet receive fewer preservation resources than sites associated with dominant cultural narratives.

Several mechanisms produce heritage inequity. Historical research patterns concentrated archaeological attention on classical civilizations, monumental architecture, and elite contexts, leaving vernacular sites understudied. Heritage designation systems often reflect these biases, with Indigenous sites, working-class landscapes, and minority heritage underrepresented in protected site inventories. When preservation resources flow primarily to designated sites, existing inequities are reinforced and amplified.

Indigenous peoples face particular injustices. Historical dispossession forced many Indigenous communities onto marginal lands vulnerable to environmental hazards. Their ancestral sites, even when located elsewhere, frequently lack official protection. Colonial suppression of Indigenous cultures means many sites were never properly documented. Current preservation systems often exclude Indigenous communities from decision-making about ancestral heritage, violating the principle of free, prior, and informed consent articulated in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. ¹⁶

Addressing heritage inequity requires structural changes in how preservation decisions are made and resources allocated. Descendant communities and Indigenous peoples must have meaningful authority over heritage significant to them, not merely consultative roles in decisions made by others. Preservation funding should explicitly prioritize underrepresented heritage. Research agendas should respond to community priorities rather than purely academic interests. These changes challenge long-standing power structures within archaeology and heritage management, meeting resistance from established institutions and practitioners.

Moreover, heritage preservation must not divert resources from adaptation measures protecting living communities. The same Indigenous coastal communities whose ancestral sites face climate threats are often themselves threatened by erosion, flooding, and storm impacts. Prioritizing archaeological documentation over community adaptation would be ethically unconscionable. Ideally, heritage preservation integrates with broader community adaptation, supporting cultural continuity while addressing contemporary needs. In practice, this integration requires coordination across typically separate planning domains—archaeology, emergency management, infrastructure planning, social services—that rarely communicate effectively.

The Knowledge at Stake: Why Heritage Matters

Beyond ethical and cultural arguments, archaeological sites threatened by climate change contain practical knowledge potentially valuable for contemporary adaptation. Archaeological evidence documents how past societies responded to climate change, resource scarcity, and environmental disruption. Some responses proved successful, enabling societies to adapt and persist; others failed, resulting in site abandonment or cultural transformation. Understanding this long-term record of human-environment interaction may inform contemporary adaptation strategies.

For example, archaeological evidence from the Pacific Islands documents sophisticated traditional ecological knowledge and resource management practices that sustained societies for millennia on isolated islands with limited resources. Traditional agricultural techniques, reef and fishery management, water conservation practices, and social institutions for resource allocation enabled long-term sustainability. As contemporary Pacific Island communities confront climate change, this traditional knowledge—encoded in archaeological sites, oral traditions, and continuing practices—may prove invaluable. ¹⁷

Similarly, archaeological research in arid regions documents ancient water management systems, drought-resistant crops, and settlement strategies that buffered environmental variability. In permafrost regions, Indigenous archaeology reveals clothing, shelter, and subsistence practices adapted to extreme cold. Coastal sites worldwide preserve evidence of responses to past sea level changes, storm impacts, and resource fluctuations. This knowledge remains relevant as contemporary societies face analogous challenges.

However, extracting lessons from archaeological evidence requires caution. Past contexts differed from present ones in fundamental ways: smaller populations, different technologies, alternative social organizations, and lower baseline environmental stress. Responses effective in past contexts may not translate directly to present circumstances. Moreover, the archaeological record is biased toward successful strategies—societies that persisted—potentially underrepresenting failures. Archaeologists must avoid overly simplistic historical analogies while recognizing that past human experience remains relevant to contemporary challenges.

Conclusion

The Imperative for Action

Climate change poses an unprecedented threat to coastal and floodplain archaeological heritage worldwide. The scale of potential loss—tens of thousands of sites representing the full spectrum of human cultural development—demands urgent response. Current preservation capacity falls far short of need, while the pace of environmental change accelerates. Without substantial increases in monitoring, documentation, and conservation resources, much of humanity’s coastal archaeological heritage will be lost within this century.

This loss would impoverish human understanding of our collective past. Archaeological sites are irreplaceable archives of human experience, documenting millennia of cultural development, environmental adaptation, and social organization. Their destruction eliminates knowledge of how past societies confronted challenges analogous to those facing contemporary communities. Moreover, heritage loss inflicts cultural harm on descendant communities whose identities, territorial connections, and spiritual practices intertwine with ancestral landscapes. For Indigenous peoples in particular, site destruction compounds historical injustices and undermines contemporary sovereignty.

Recommendations for Research and Practice

Addressing climate threats to archaeological heritage requires coordinated action across multiple domains. We offer the following recommendations:

For Researchers

• Prioritize documentation of threatened sites, recognizing that baseline recording now may be the only opportunity to preserve information before degradation occurs;
• Develop and refine vulnerability assessment methodologies that integrate climate projections, site-specific geomorphology, and preservation conditions;
• Investigate how archaeological evidence of past climate adaptation can inform contemporary resilience strategies;
• Engage meaningfully with descendant communities and Indigenous peoples, respecting their authority over ancestral heritage and supporting community-led research priorities;
• Make research findings accessible to non-specialists through public communication, supporting informed decision-making and broader climate action.

For Heritage Managers and Policymakers

• Establish systematic monitoring programs for threatened sites, combining remote sensing, periodic assessment, and community-based observation;
• Develop rapid-response protocols enabling timely intervention when sites face imminent threats;
• Increase funding for heritage preservation, recognizing that current resources are inadequate to the scale of need;
• Reform designation and prioritization systems to ensure equitable protection for sites significant to Indigenous and marginalized communities;
• Integrate heritage preservation with broader climate adaptation planning, supporting coordination across typically separate policy domains;
• Strengthen international cooperation, facilitating knowledge exchange and resource sharing across borders.

For Indigenous Communities and Descendant Groups

• Assert authority over ancestral heritage, ensuring that preservation decisions respect community values and priorities;
• Document traditional knowledge about site locations, significance, and history, recognizing that community knowledge often exceeds formal archaeological records;
• Develop community-based monitoring and conservation programs that build local capacity while maintaining cultural protocols;
• Advocate for policy reforms ensuring meaningful Indigenous participation in heritage management decisions;
• Strengthen connections between youth and ancestral sites, supporting cultural continuity across generations.

Heritage as Climate Justice

Ultimately, this paper argues that archaeological heritage preservation must be understood as a climate justice issue. The sites most vulnerable to climate change, and least likely to receive protective intervention, disproportionately belong to Indigenous peoples, racial minorities, and economically disadvantaged communities. These communities bear disproportionate climate burdens while contributing least to emissions driving climate change. Heritage loss compounds broader climate injustices, making equitable preservation essential to climate justice.

Climate justice requires that preservation resources flow equitably, that affected communities participate meaningfully in decision-making, and that heritage protection integrates with broader efforts to support vulnerable communities. It demands recognition that whose past gets preserved is a political question with consequences for contemporary power relations, territorial claims, and cultural survival. It necessitates uncomfortable acknowledgment that current preservation systems reflect and perpetuate colonial legacies and structural inequities.

Meeting these demands requires transforming heritage preservation practice. Archaeologists and heritage managers must share authority with descendant communities rather than positioning themselves as sole experts. Preservation funding must prioritize equity alongside other criteria. Research agendas must respond to community priorities as well as academic interests. These changes face institutional resistance and practical challenges, yet remain ethically imperative.

Confronting Loss

Even with aggressive preservation efforts, substantial heritage loss appears inevitable. Sea level rise will inundate sites, erosion will scatter deposits, and permafrost thaw will destroy organic materials. Some sites can be documented, creating digital surrogates that preserve information and enable continued engagement. Many others will be lost before documentation occurs, their information irretrievable. This reality demands confronting loss—acknowledging that despite best efforts, climate change will erase portions of the archaeological record.

Confronting loss does not mean accepting it passively. Rather, it requires honest assessment of what can and cannot be saved, strategic allocation of limited resources, and transparent acknowledgment of the choices being made. It necessitates grieving for what will be lost while acting decisively to preserve what can be saved. It demands that contemporary societies acknowledge responsibility for losses driven by anthropogenic climate change.

Archaeological sites are more than research resources; they are places of memory, identity, and connection. Their loss diminishes humanity’s collective heritage while inflicting specific harms on communities whose ancestors created and occupied these places. As climate change accelerates, the imperative to act grows more urgent. The past is vanishing. The question is how much we will preserve, for whom, and through what means. Our choices will be judged by future generations who inherit either a preserved heritage that honors diverse human experience, or an impoverished record that reflects contemporary society’s priorities and failures.

References

Footnotes:

1. Ben Marzeion and Anders Levermann, “Loss of Cultural World Heritage and Currently Inhabited Places to Sea-Level Rise,” Environmental Research Letters 9, no. 3 (2014): 034001.

2. David G. Anderson et al., “Sea-Level Rise and Archaeological Site Destruction: An Example from the Southeastern United States Using DINAA (Digital Index of North American Archaeology),” PLoS ONE 12, no. 11 (2017): e0188142.

3. IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Sixth Assessment Report , ed. Valérie Masson-Delmotte et al. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021).

4. Marcy Rockman, “An NPS Framework for Addressing Climate Change with Cultural Resources,” The George Wright Forum 32, no. 1 (2015): 37-50.

5. Tom Dawson, “Taking the Middle Path to the Coast: How Community Collaboration Can Help Save Threatened Sites,” in Climate Change and Cultural Heritage: Proceedings from the European Archaeology Association , ed. Claus Ambrossiani (Stockholm: Nordic Academic Press, 2016), 27-42.

6. Rick A. Jervis and Sarah A. May, “Cultural Heritage and Climate Justice: Loss and Damage to Indigenous Knowledge,” International Journal of Heritage Studies 27, no. 6 (2021): 564-577.

7. Kieran Westley and Rachel Plets, “The Role of UNESCO Policy in Developing a Marine Archaeological Approach to the Protection of Submerged Prehistoric Landscapes,” Marine Policy 61 (2015): 325-331.

8. Robert Van de Noort, “Climate Change Archaeology: Building Resilience from Research in the World’s Coastal Wetlands,” Proceedings of the British Academy 198 (2013): 145-163.

9. Jennifer F. Thiessen et al., “Emergency Recording of a Bronze Age Settlement Revealed by Reservoir Drought in Iraqi Kurdistan,” Archäologische Mitteilungen aus Iran und Turan 50 (2020): 1-39.

10. Leslie A. Reeder-Myers, “Cultural Heritage at Risk in the Twenty-First Century: A Vulnerability Assessment of Coastal Archaeological Sites in the United States,” Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology 10, no. 3 (2015): 436-445.

11. Jørgen Hollesen et al., “Permafrost Thawing in Organic Arctic Soils Accelerated by Ground Heat Production,” Nature Climate Change 5 (2015): 574-578.

12. Darren Williamson, “After a Typhoon, Underwater Heritage at Vanuatu,” Maritime Archaeology Newsletter from Denmark 28 (2016): 10-15.

13. Laura Reimann et al., “Mediterranean UNESCO World Heritage at Risk from Coastal Flooding and Erosion Due to Sea-Level Rise,” Nature Communications 9 (2018): 4161.

14. Carl P. Lipo, Terry L. Hunt, and Rene Bork, “The Conservation and Management of Archaeological Sites Facing Climate Change Threats,” Conservation and Management of Archaeological Sites 18, no. 1-3 (2016): 4-10.

15. Adam Markham et al., World Heritage and Tourism in a Changing Climate (Paris: UNESCO World Heritage Centre, 2016).

16. United Nations, United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (New York: United Nations, 2007).

17. Daryl Stump, “On Applied Archaeology, Indigenous Knowledge, and the Usable Past,” Current Anthropology 54, no. 3 (2013): 268-298.