Climate change erasing archaeological evidence

Archaeologists frequently face the loss of valuable information to development, looting, or armchair anthropologists. Human activities, which contribute to climate change, further threaten essential artifacts from past societies and the clues they provide of their ecosystems. Researchers studying archaeological sites of California's Channel Islands are especially impacted by the new effects of climate change, rising oceans, and shoreline eroding ocean surges.. 

The Channel Islands have been battered by the ocean for a long time, eroding beaches, cutting into cliffs, and gradually wearing away countless cultural artifacts. While coastal erosion has primarily been a natural occurrence in the past, the situation is expected to worsen due to human-induced climate change and rising sea levels. In a desperate effort to preserve history, Erlandson and other historians are rushing to document and salvage artifacts that provide some of the earliest evidence of human maritime activity in the Americas. "We’re just hoping there’s something left," he expressed. 

​Read more about the loss of coastal archaeological artifiacts in the Channel Island here. 

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