Georgia Historical Sites Face 'Imminent Risk' of Destruction

Historical and archaeological sites in Georgia are in danger of being battered by extreme weather as climate change worsens.

A new study, published in PLOS ONE, details how thousands of Native American sites, colonial areas and more on the Georgia coastline could be subject to damage from rising sea levels and tropical storm surges.

Using a model developed by the National Weather Service, Matthew D. Howland and Victor D. Thompson of Wichita State University and the University of Georgia, assessed how at risk these sites are, and how this risk increases because of climate change. They found over 4,200 sites are at serious risk of flooding from Category 5 hurricanes with the current sea level. They also found that by the year 2100, up to 5,000 sites could be submerged in water, and over 2,000 could be threatened by even weak storms.

Sites at risk include Late Archaic shell ring villages once lived in by ancestral Muskogean people. These 4,000-year-old sites represent important cultural heritage, the study reported, yet they are at "imminent risk" of storm surge events.

"This study shows that the archaeological resources of the Georgia coast are at great risk of damage from potential storm surge at any time," Howland said. "Up until now, archaeologists have generally underestimated the threat to coastal cultural heritage since they have been thinking of long-term averages of sea level rise rather than the kind of dramatic disaster events that can happen in Georgia and the Atlantic Coast, like Hurricane Michael in 2018."

The numbers found in the study are ten times higher than in previous models, which only accounted for sea level rise. This study, however, factored in an increase in extreme storms, which is already being witnessed as a result of climate change.

Many studies have found that climate change is causing weather to become more extreme, with the potential to severely damage infrastructure, particularly in coastal communities.

"The Georgia coast's cultural heritage spans millennia, from the earliest Native American villages of Ancestral Muskogean people to its colonial missions and later plantations," Thompson said. "These cultural sites are increasingly being impacted by storms and sea level change which threaten the material link to the broader histories of Native peoples, the enslaved, and their place in American history."

The study shows that it is important to account for all manifestations of climate change, including storm surges, as well as rising sea levels. The authors hope their findings will initiate more protection and mitigation efforts for archaeological and historical sites.

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