13,000 U.S. Archaeology Sites To Be Flooded by Rising Seas
Thousands of American archaeological gems could be destroyed by the end of this century, thanks to climate change.
In a study published November 29 in the journal PLOS ONE, a group of researchers from across the country predicted that rising sea levels will submerge more than 13,000 archaeological sites in the southeastern United States by 2100. The team reached this sobering conclusion by analyzing data from the Digital Index of North American Archaeology, a massive database that aggregates human settlement records in North America.
"The impacts of projected climate change and, in particular, sea level rise are the greatest challenges that our profession has ever faced," says David Anderson, an anthropologist at the University of Tennessee who co-authored the study.
PHOTOGRAPH BY RICARDO RAMIREZ BUXEDA, ORLANDO SENTINEL, TNS VIA GETTY IMAGES