The coastal erosion crisis isn’t just an archaeological disaster; for Indigenous peoples it has significant political and cultural impacts. In Canada, recent Supreme Court of Canada decisions weigh archaeological resources as key evidence of routine and historical use of land and resources in rights-based negotiations. As a result, the loss of Indigenous archaeological sites has significant implications for Indigenous people. This creates further impetus for archaeologists engaged in coastal erosion research to formulate responsive, engaged, and collaborative research methodologies. This paper outlines a new shared authority archaeological project on Nova Scotia’s South Shore. COASTAL (Community Observation, Assessment, and Salvage of Threatened Archaeological Legacy) is conducted in partnership with Acadia First Nation, Nova Scotia’s Department of Communities, Culture and Heritage, Kwilmu’kw Maw-klusuaqn Negotiations Office (also known as Mi’kmaq Rights Initiative), and the University of New Brunswick. The project seeks to engage and empower Mi’kmaw partners in the preservation of their threatened archaeological heritage. Our paper outlines preliminary results from our recent fieldwork and details our survey, mapping, and erosion vulnerability assessment protocols. However, the paper focuses on our collaborative approach to the management of the project, which we believe may provide a new model for community-based erosion archaeology.

Coastal erosion and rising sea levels are major concerns for Prince Edward Island (PEI) whose shoreline is eroding an average of 28 cm per year. Both are especially threatening to archaeological sites in PEI, as a high proportion of sites are located along the coast or near watercourses. In response to the growing effects of climate change, the PEI Provincial Archaeology Office initiated a shoreline study in 2016. The goal of this study was to identify and document areas of high vulnerability and archaeological potential. Using coastal change data (from 1968 – 2010) and elevation data, staff members identified archaeological sites that are vulnerable to coastal erosion and sea level rise. Sixty-one (61) archaeological sites were identified to have low elevation and medium risk erosion (located 0-2 m above sea level and 0.2 – 0.8 m/year erosion), and 32 sites were identified to have low elevation and high risk erosion (0-2 m ASL and > 0.8 m/year erosion). Over the past two years, staff members have attempted to visit thirty-six (36) of these vulnerable sites. This presentation will discuss the benefits and challenges of this project and outline future work.

Coastal north-central Labrador is of specific archaeological importance for the preservation of its sites and cultural landscapes representing multiple cultural traditions and about 5000 years of occupation.  Diverse factors such as isostatic rebound, the distribution of coastal tundra, cold and damp climatic conditions and the development of permafrost have fostered exceptional preservation conditions for whole sites and for organic remains.  Current climate change processes impinge on these conditions, however, and the lack of diachronic studies of contemporary site taphonomy hinders our capacity to adequately assess the nature, scale and speed of their impacts.   Long-term research projects focused on specific sites and regions can provide a means to grapple with the problem.

This presentation reviews site taphonomy data compiled since 2000 by archaeological field projects in the Dog Island region of north-central Labrador.  Survey, excavation and soil coring records, paleoenvironmental surveys and photographic documentation are used to identify current threats to archaeological sites and landscapes.  Sea level rise and its attendant processes of coastal erosion comprise one measureable risk factor.  This study suggests that more subtle and ultimately more dangerous factors may include the loss of permafrost patches associated with peat and anthropogenic soils, the subsequent erosion of the soil column and the forestation and shrubbification of peat and tundra environments where well-preserved sites are currently found.  A proposed programme of remote sensing, site assessment and instrumentation and mapping provides a set of tools for monitoring and measuring the scale of these threats in the region, in the immediate future.

Coastal erosion is a critical threat to the archaeological record as formerly perma-frozen ground is melting across the Arctic. In Canada’s Low Arctic, perma-frozen ground is already lower in the substrate, so as this melts faster through climate warming, the archaeological matrix is increasingly exposed to potential erosion. In Nunavik, as in much of the Canadian Arctic, most of the archaeological heritage is found along the coast. Sites found along gravel beach ridges and sandy bluffs appear to be particularly vulnerable to this erosion. Our most recent research project, Pujjunaq: Archaeology and History Project, is an example to shed some light on this problematic. Pujjunaq is a large island located in northeastern Hudson Bay, near Akulivik and Ivujivik. In collaboration with the northern village of Akulivik, this project involves archaeological survey, excavation, toponymy and oral history, in order to document the extent of human occupancy of the island, from Pre-Dorset to Inuit times. An extensive archaeological survey in 2014 identified a number of sites under threat by erosion, and in 2017 a salvage excavation of the endangered Qulliapik (JlGu-3) site took place. The site is composed of both Dorset and Thule Inuit houses, with the Dorset presence particularly under threat. Excavations revealed excellent preservation of organic artifacts from the Late Dorset period. The survey recorded a total of 110 sites concentrated along the coastline and successively occupied for over 3800 years, indicating a rich history of human occupation on Pujjunaq that needs quick action in order to be preserved.

Cultural landscapes are an effective means of conceptualizing the heritage character of the lived landscape, an approach which has been applied in heritage management programmes around the world. A central aspect of cultural landscape management efforts is their particular attention to the broad typology of values which may be ascribed to places of cultural importance. This presentation addresses the results of a cultural landscape vulnerability model developed for the Kugmallit Bay area of the Inuvialuit Settlement Region, Northwest Territories, Canada. The model has been developed to mobilize notions of value and risk in the determination of threatened places of cultural importance by employing the GIS-facilitated method of ‘grounded visualization’. It is argued here that grounded visualization methods provide a robust approach to cultural landscape management given their capacity to address qualitative and quantitative accounts of risk and value from a range of sources in a non-hierarchical, flexible and iterative fashion.

This paper discusses the effects of coastal erosion on archaeological sites in Ivvavik National Park and the current response to it. Ivvavik, located along the Yukon North Slope within the Inuvialuit Settlement Region, is rich in archaeological material that provides evidence of early human migration into the Canadian Arctic and the development of Inuvialuit culture. Ivvavik’s coastline is being significantly impacted by coastal erosion. Numerous sites have already eroded and many of the remaining are threatened or are at imminent risk of eroding. Research indicates that by 2100, more than 50% of the documented archaeological sites along Arctic coasts will likely be eroded. Throughout the Park co-management planning process, Inuvialuit Stakeholders identified 12 culturally significant coastal sites emphasizing their need for continued protection. In response, Parks Canada’s Western Arctic Field Unit (WAFU) implemented a coastal monitoring program to monitor the extent and impact of erosion on these archaeological sites and continues to work closely with its Indigenous partners to document traditional and local knowledge, and the archaeology, of these sites before they are eroded. Recently, WAFU has partnered with coastal erosion experts at the Alfred Wegener Institute to better understand erosion rates and future shoreline projections to more effectively inform mitigation decisions. It is our hope that through continued partnership with Indigenous stakeholders and by introducing specialized scientific research and advanced technologies, our team will be better equipped to strategically respond to the rapidly changing landscape and to the loss of archaeological sites along the coast in culturally appropriate ways.