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Wetland archaeology and the impact of climate change

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 November 2022

Henning Matthiesen*
Affiliation:
Environmental Archaeology & Material Science, National Museum of Denmark, Copenhagen, Denmark
Richard Brunning
Affiliation:
South West Heritage Trust, Somerset Heritage Centre, Taunton, UK
Bethune Carmichael
Affiliation:
Australian National University, Department of Archaeology & Natural History, Canberra, Australia
Jørgen Hollesen
Affiliation:
Environmental Archaeology & Material Science, National Museum of Denmark, Copenhagen, Denmark
*
*Author for correspondence ✉ henning.matthiesen@natmus.dk
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Abstract

Wetland archaeological sites offer excellent but vulnerable preservation conditions. This article presents examples of threats to such sites that may be enhanced, or diminished, by climate change, discusses methods for predicting and quantifying impacts, and examines what heritage managers can do to mitigate their effects. The consequences of climate change for wetland archaeological sites are likely to be severe and widespread but hard to predict and with significant local variation. At the same time, wetlands are increasingly acknowledged for their ability to sequester carbon and to mitigate climate change, prompting an increased focus on their protection that may also benefit wetland archaeology.

Information

Type
Research Article
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Antiquity Publications Ltd.
Figure 0

Figure 1. Examples of archaeological finds from wetlands: a) a carved wooden scabbard, c. 1600 BP (Nydam, Denmark); b) a Neolithic trackway, c. 5800 BP (Somerset, England); c) human figures carved on an aurochs bone, c. 10 000 BP (Ryemarksgård, Denmark); and d) human remains, c. 2400 BP (Tollund, Denmark) (photographs courtesy of the National Museum of Denmark (J. Lee and R. Fortuna) and the Somerset Levels Project).

Figure 1

Figure 2. Projected water cycle changes. Long-term (2081–2100) projected annual mean changes (%) relative to present-day (1995–2014) in the SSP2-4.5 emissions scenario for: (a) precipitation; (b) surface evapotranspiration; (c) total runoff; and (d) surface soil moisture. Numbers in the top right of each panel indicate the number of Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6) models used for estimating the ensemble mean. For other scenarios, please refer to relevant figures in Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (2021). Uncertainty is represented using the simple approach: no overlay indicates regions with high model agreement, where ≥80% of models agree on sign of change; diagonal lines indicate regions with low model agreement, where <80% of models agree on sign of change (figure taken with permission from Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (2021: technical summary, box TS.6)).

Figure 2

Figure 3. Regional distribution (percentage) of wetland area based on a total global wetland area of 12.1 million km2 (numbers taken from Davidson et al.2018) (figure by J. Hollesen).

Figure 3

Figure 4. Predicting the impact of climate change on wetland archaeology is complex and requires an understanding of processes both above and below ground (figure by H. Matthiesen).