Climate Change Threatens Archaeology

June 12, 2022 11:42 AM

Researchers’ number-one fear from Syria to Afghanistan is not war or terrorism but the coming shifts in nature itself.

V&A Culture in Crisis portal

This free digital resource is a demonstration of the V&A’s ongoing commitment to protecting the world’s cultural heritage and supporting communities that suffer cultural loss, whether through conflict, criminal acts or natural disaster. The Culture in Crisis Programme brings together those with a shared interest in protecting cultural heritage, providing a forum for sharing information, inspiring and supporting action and raising public awareness.

British Library Endangered Archives Programme

The Endangered Archives Programme seeks to preserve cultural heritage and make it available to as wide an audience as possible. To achieve this we provide grants to applicants to digitise and document archives. ‘Endangered’ means material that is at risk of loss or decay, and is located in countries where resources and opportunities to preserve such material are lacking or limited.

posted by Ahmad Khani (6 comments total)

"One of the cruelest injustices of climate change is the overwhelming effect it has on countries that have contributed the least to carbon emissions. In the realm of cultural heritage, architects and archaeologists are discovering that Indigenous knowledge provides one of the best ways to protect sites against climate change — but it is precisely this knowledge that is being lost amid a wider global displacement in rural communities."
posted by Ahmad Khani at 11:54 AM on June 12, 2022 [7 favorites]

When mummies start start rotting in the Atacama desert, you know you are in deep shit.
posted by jamjam at 12:02 PM on June 12, 2022

This is a major challenge for universities.
posted by doctornemo at 2:44 PM on June 12, 2022

This kind of thing makes me so sad. It hurts to think about.
posted by Too-Ticky at 2:40 AM on June 13, 2022 [2 favorites]

There's a recent Ars Technica article India isn’t ready for a deadly combination of heat and humidity.

Of course India isn't a country contributing least to carbon emissions (it may be the country contributing the most), but it is becoming an increasing problem throughout the world, where more highly populated places are becoming basically uninhabitable for humans.
posted by eye of newt at 1:29 PM on June 13, 2022

(Just checked--in terms of total CO2 emissions India is behind the US and China--China is ahead by at least 2x).
posted by eye of newt at 1:36 PM on June 13, 2022