2022 Lecture Series
On the second and fourth Friday of each month, the NAHAR working group hosted a virtual lecture. This event served as an opportunity for scholars to come together to find common research threads and develop action items that address heritage at risk.
Below is a list of past lectures with links to recorded content.
While I Breathe, I Hope: The South Carolina Archaeological Archive Flood Recovery Project
Meg Gaillard, South Carolina Department of Natural Resources, Heritage Trust Program
9am EST, Friday, January 14, 2022
In October 2015, a catastrophic flood event impacted South Carolina resulting in the loss of 19 lives, the displacement of 20,000 individuals, and $1.9 billion in damages. During the flood, a large portion of the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources (SCDNR) archaeological archive was inundated for days. While initial recovery efforts to remove and relocate impacted materials from the archaeological archive to a triage facility only took few days, the long-term recovery effort took eight months. SCDNR archaeologists, along with volunteers, student and professional archaeologists worked methodically to re-curate approximately 1,500 boxes of previously curated artifacts, stabilize 100 cubic feet of documents, and process 15,000 photographs, negatives, and slides. As a result of the flood, the SCDNR Archaeology team was able to establish its first research headquarters in April 2017 – Parker Annex Archaeology Center, and able to assist those preparing for and responding to disasters in their own communities.
Climate Change and the Consequences of Underrepresentation in the Archaeological Record
Katherine Parker, University of Tennessee Knoxville
9am EST, Friday, January 28, 2022
Recent studies have demonstrated that a significant number of cultural heritage resources will be affected by rising sea levels and climatic disasters in the near future; however, efforts to model the impacts of climate change have provided cursory, if any, considerations of how structural inequality compounds the threats posed by climate change to vulnerable resources. The effects of this erasure are not limited to the past, but rather, have significant and lasting implications for descendant communities in the present. This talk will discuss the relationship between legacies of historical marginalization, cultural heritage resources, and archaeological practice in the context of climate change discourse, and highlight the intersection of these themes through a case study of climate change modeling in the Great Dismal Swamp.
Navigating Changing Tides at Fort Mose
Lori Lee, Flagler College
9am EST, Friday, February 11, 2022
As climate change threatens cultural heritage sites, it is necessary that we mitigate impacts to our most significant sites before rising tides claim them. Fort Mose, the first legally sanctioned free African American settlement in what became the United States, is certainly a site that merits urgent intervention. Our collaborative research project at Fort Mose builds on earlier archaeology at the site in an effort to discover more about the lives of the people in the multicultural communities that lived and worked here from prehistoric times into the present. Simultaneously we are monitoring and documenting climate change and human impacts in an effort to contribute to attempts to develop means of protecting this and other sites.
Once They’re Gone They’re Gone for Good: A Presentation on Native American Shell Heaps, Climate Change, and Confronting Heritage Loss in Maine
Alice Kelley and Bonnie Newsome, University of Maine
9am EST, Friday, February 25, 2022
Maine is home to roughly 2000 coastal Indigenous archaeological sites known as shell heaps or middens. These sites are rich heritage spaces that preserve a long record of past Indigenous lifeways and environments. In this presentation, Dr. Bonnie Newsom and Dr. Alice Kelley of the University of Maine will discuss these important places highlighting their cultural value and importance to archaeological research. They will also discuss the University of Maine’s Midden Minder’s program—a citizen science initiative designed to monitor and record shell heaps threatened by climate change impacts
Heritage Monitoring Scouts of Florida (HMS Florida) Turns 5: Past Findings and Future Directions
Sarah Miller, Florida Public Archaeology Network
9am EST, Friday, March 11, 2022
The Florida Public Archaeology Network (FPAN) launched the Heritage Monitoring Scout (HMS Florida) program statewide at the first Tidally United Summit in 2016. Since that time, over 800 volunteers signed up and submitted over 2480 monitoring forms from across the state. This presentation will hit the highlights of the HMS Florida program, share novel approaches to monitoring with volunteers initiated by FPAN staff, discuss findings from our two-year study funded by a Florida Department of State Special Category grant, and give a sneak peek into what’s ahead as we enter our 6th year.
Current Excavations: Documenting Archaeological Resources Throughout Virginia’s Riverine Environment in Response to Hurricanes Michael and Florence
Brendan Burke, Virginia DHR Underwater Archaeology Program
9am EST, Friday, March 25, 2022
Since 2021, the Virginia Department of Historic Resources (DHR) has awarded a number of river survey grants funded by the Emergency Supplement to the Historic Preservation Fund (ESHPF) as a result of damage from hurricanes Michael and Florence. These grants focus on archaeological resources within riparian zones and bring a number of technologies to bear to document changes to known archaeological resources and document newly-discovered sites. At present, segments of six rivers are, or will be, surveyed to total nearly 200 linear miles of survey. Fieldwork began in 2020 and will continue through 2023. Survey work will take place in nine counties and involve local informants such as historical societies and river clubs. Results of the surveys will help guide resource management in dynamic riverine environments and create baseline inventories for a broad geographical area within the Commonwealth.
Fort Rice at Risk: History and Preservation
Andrew Robinson
9am EST, Friday, April 8, 2022
Constructed in 1864, Fort Rice became one of the first military installations in what is now North Dakota. Fort Rice became vital to American western expansion through the fort’s expansion by the First US Volunteers, the signing of the 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie establishing the Great Sioux Reservation, and the early Yellowstone expeditions to survey the Northern Pacific Railroad. Since the fort’s abandonment in 1878, it has been transformed into a state historic site. While this designation implies preservation, the site is undergoing environmental transformations. The Fort is located along the banks of the Missouri River in south central North Dakota near the Standing Rock Reservation. This presentation will focus on the history and the ongoing cultural and environmental impacts to the Fort.
Archaeology-Climate Narratives: Science-telling for Increased Engagement
Heather Wholey, West Chester University, and Carole Nash, James Madison University
9am EST, Friday, April 22, 2022
Sea level rise, increased storm frequency, rising temperatures, forest fires, erosion, debris flows: archaeologists are familiar with the ever-increasing litany of climate change threats to cultural resources, scientific information, and community heritage. How well do we communicate these threats? How well do we advocate for archaeology, which is positioned to offer long-term, interdisciplinary perspectives on human-climate interactions? As scientists, we are socialized to educate and share information through statistical, expository, and deductive approaches – a communication strategy that furthers the discipline but may not speak to decision-makers, community members, or funders. In this talk, we demonstrate the potential of alternative communication strategies that use robust research as the foundation for narratives describing human responses to climate change, impacts to cultural resources, and collaborative approaches to documenting loss. We argue that a narrative communication style will result in increased comprehension, interest, and engagement with diverse audiences. Promoting and protecting the strong connection between community well-being and heritage resources requires the development of new skills.
Learning Through Legacy Data: Understanding Environmental Impacts Along the Black Warrior River, AL
Steven Filoromo
9am EST, Friday, May 13, 2022
Along the rivers of central Alabama, communities contend with a wide array of environmental issues, including, but not limited to industrial pollution and increasing severe weather events. Such concerns pose threats to both heritage preservation and people’s lived experiences in the past, present, and future. Archaeology and historic preservation provide unique tools for exploring these issues. However, the nature of legacy archaeological data in the region is complicated. It is often difficult to assess the nature of how environmental changes have and continue to impact the preservation of sites as data is lost or references missing geographic features. As part of my geophysical research at Snow’s Bend Farm in Tuscaloosa County, Alabama, I identified inconsistencies in locating and understanding the impacts of erosion at the riverside village, cemetery, and farm. In the absence of important records from historic investigations, I compiled alternative data to contribute to a greater understanding of these impacts. Using historic aerial imagery, historic maps, remote sensing, and archaeological geophysics, it is possible to identify the impacts of erosion at Snow’s Bend, and more broadly the Black Warrior Valley. My goal is to discuss how archaeologists address the long-term impacts on archaeological and historical contexts in the absence of vital legacy data. More broadly, this discussion is meant to facilitate conversation to think through ways to develop a comparative analysis of environmental impacts on archaeological sites.
Calming the Chaos: Organizing a Heritage Emergency with the Incident Command System
Jared Yax, Tri-Cities Historical Museum
9am EST, Friday, June 10, 2022
Disaster events create chaotic scenes that are by nature highly stressful situations. These events can happen at any time of day and any day of the week. Museums, libraries and historical sites are very good at organizing and storing information and artifacts, however they don’t really focus on how to organize people and resources in a very limited time frame while under hazardous conditions. Fire departments and emergency managers across the country use the Incident Command Systems (ICS) to help manage time, people and resources while deployed to these types of emergency situations. Historians and emergency managers come together to learn this system through the Heritage Emergency And Response Training (HEART) produced by FEMA and the Smithsonian. ICS was used to help run emergency operations and rescue artifacts for local museums in Midland, Michigan after the Edenville and Sanford Dams failed on May 19th, 2020. Tens of thousands of artifacts were rescued by several hundred volunteers over the course of just four days at each site. What could have been a confusing and demoralizing mess of a situation turned into a highly efficient and effective operation to save the heritage of two communities. This lecture will explore how the Incident Command System was implemented to calm the chaos after the floods by bringing museum professionals and community volunteers together to save history.
Integrating Site Monitoring into Planning in Pinellas County
Rachael Kangas and Tom Scofield, Florida Public Archaeology Network and Pinellas County
9am EST, Friday June 24, 2022
Pinellas county integrated archaeological sites into ongoing resiliency planning. Not only does this help track deterioration of important cultural sites, it doubles as data on the changing coastlines in the county. Completing steps outlined by the state also opens funding opportunities for future work on resiliency and county planning.
Cultural Heritage at Risk: Emergency Preparedness in the Lowcountry
Kim Roche, South Carolina Low Country Alliance for Response and Clemson University
9am EST, Friday, July 8, 2022
The rich history of the South Carolina Lowcountry is preserved not only within its many archives, libraries, museums, special collections, and historical societies but also through its cultural landscapes, sites, neighborhoods, and other tribal and historic communities. These sites and collections can be utilized to study everything from the Lowcountry practice of sweetgrass basketry to evolutionary biology as a function of climate change. However, the impact of water-related disasters on coastal communities increases in frequency and intensity with every passing year, and this is especially true for the Lowcountry where the threat of coastal erosion, sea level rise, and sunny day flooding are ever-present. The negative effects of climate change on the cultural heritage sector are of grave concern as heritage custodians are continually asked to undertake more responsibilities with fewer resources. Furthermore, historically excluded stakeholders are even more susceptible to loss of their material culture and heritage. This presentation will examine efforts to prepare the Lowcountry heritage sector for its next emergency with an eye toward building long-term resilience.
CHERISH Project: The investigation of climate change impacts on intertidal, shallow and deep water wrecks in Ireland
Sandra Henry, CHERISH
9am EST, Friday, July 22, 2022
In Ireland, the CHERISH project are investigating the impacts of climate change on wreck sites exposed to different environmental conditions. Remote sensing and archaeological recording methodologies are creating substantive site records along with the establishment of baseline and monitoring datasets. The type of wrecks investigated vary from Unknown wooden intertidal wreck sites at Bull Island, Dublin to the SS Manchester Merchant an Iron built vessel located at a depth of 12m in Dingle Bay, Kerr
Federal Emergency Response: Preparing for and Responding to Disasters
Lori Foley, Heritage Emergency National Task Force, FEMA
9am EST, August 12, 2022
Cultural and historic resources are found in government offices, archives, museums, libraries, historical societies, and other collecting institutions. When disaster strikes a community, recovery of these very institutions is crucial for continuity of government and for maintaining the community’s identity, resilience, and economic vitality. When a disaster rises to the level requiring federal engagement, the Heritage Emergency National Task Force (HENTF), a partnership co-led by FEMA and the Smithsonian Institution, can bring much-needed assistance to the impacted cultural community. Participants will gain an understanding of the role they can play in supporting HENTF’s objectives to protect our nation’s cultural heritage from the damaging effects of natural disasters and other emergencies.
Climate Change, Cultural Resources, Community Conversations, and Cocktails
Michael Savarese, Florida Gulf Coast University, and Sally Woliver
9am EST, September 9, 2022
Click here for the presentation slides.
Tale of Two Management Plans: Comparing Visitor Impacts to Rock Art Sites on National Park Service Land vs. San Bernardino County Land
Jeremy Freeman, Lead Archaeologist, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands
9am EST, September 23, 2022
On July, 6 2016 it was announced that management of the Coyote Hole rock art site located near the village of Joshua Tree, California would be transferred from the San Bernardino County Flood Control District to the Native American Land Conservancy. The site’s proximity to Joshua Tree National Park (JOTR) provides a unique opportunity to compare this highly-accessible site with unregulated visitation to similarly threatened sites that are managed by JOTR. The publication of sensitive information pertaining to JOTR rock art sites, particularly through social media, has increasingly threatened sites and raised concerns regarding the effects of increased visitation. JOTR staff conducted a study of three panels at Coyote Hole and three panels within the park that exhibit variable degrees of accessibility, visitation, and histories of graffiti remediation. A methodology was developed to monitor and compare the transformational processes affecting rock art sites providing a better understanding of how increased visitation may adversely affect sites on public land. The methods and data here presented will be used to develop management plans for Coyote Hole and JOTR to determine appropriate visitation management strategies for rock art sites.
From Fort Construction to Hurricane Destruction: The Fort Pulaski Worker’s Village
Laura Seifert, National Park Service
9am EST, October 14, 2022
Fort Pulaski archeologists are investigating the Workers’ Village, home to the people who built the fort as well as later Civil War hospital patients, self-emancipated “contrabands,” officer’s families, and more before the village was thoroughly demolished in the 1881 hurricane. Structures demolished in the 1860s seem to be better preserved archaeologically than buildings that lasted longer. Did the 1881 hurricane strongly affect site formation processes? What traces (or lack thereof) can we see of hurricanes and climate change in the relatively recent archaeological record?
I don’t Wanna Fight: Climate Conversations in Historic Preservation
Sara Ayers-Rigsby, Florida Public Archaeology Network
9am EST, November 18, 2022
You care about climate change, but why should your audience? In this talk, Sara Ayers-Rigsby will go over some basic tips and tricks for a productive conversation on climate change. Ayers-Rigsby will summarize different training opportunities (CLEO, NNOCCI) available and how we can move forward in climate science and cultural resources communication to encourage others in stewardship efforts.