Archaeology Magazine - March/April 2009 - 35

threatening some of the last
coastal rock shelters left on the
Channel Islands off the coast of
islands/'Erosion is a problem on
the islands," Minas says*Coastal
California are a critical link in the study
The
of how humans settled the Americas* For
winds, waves, storm surges, and
the
consensus
has
been
Americas
even seals hauling out of the
decades,
simple:
first immigrants crossed the Bering Strait on foot
water can damage or destroy
coastal sites on the islands*
and made their way south, over land through what
is now Canada» Many researchers now believe,
Rising seas now threaten to
that
the
first
came
to
America
however,
people
wipe out clues to how early
from
the
Siberia
all
humans made their way into
way
by boat, island-hopping
down to the California coast*
the Americas just as researchers
Some of the best evidence for this comes from
are beginning to look into the
the Channel Islands/' We have in excess of 10,000
possibility of coastal migration*
of
human
Channel
Islands
At Daisy Cave, a sea-side site
occupation," says
years
National Park Archaeologist Kelly Minas (see
on San Miguel Island, UniverEvidence
from
Coastal"
"Going
May /June 2007)*
Risingsea levels damage shell middens sity of Oregon archaeologist Jon
shell middens, rock shelters, and other settlement
Erlandson has spent a decade
and other remains at sites that are
more than 10,000 years old.
sites supports the idea that early Americans were
excavating a 65 -foot- wide midsailors
who
reached
the
more
islands
than
den that the islands prehistoric
good
over
residents built up
thousands of years* Excavators have
13,000 years ago, hunting pygmy mammoths, elephant seals,
and sea lions. Human bones found on Santa Rosa Island in
found the remains of tools, beads, and even baskets*
1959 have been radiocarbon-dated to 13,000 years ago, makBut, their work is becoming a race against time*Erlandson
ing them the oldest human bones found in the Americas*
says the midden has shrunk by about three feet in the past
Back then, the world was much colder, and the oceans
decade*"If we ve lost a meter in 10 years, how much will we
much lower - low enough that four of the Channel Islands
lose in 50 or 100?" Erlandson asks*"If this keeps up, were
were connected by dry land* Now, rising sea levels are
going to lose an incredible amount of archaeological sites*"

Channel

Islands

Erosion

Greenland's

Sea
Ice
Melting
a normal summer, Greenland's northern and eastern
coasts should be ringed by an ice belt 30 to 40 miles wide*
In The drifting ice acts like a shock absorber, dampening
the strength of the North Atlantic* "It takes a lot of wave
energy to move the ice, and normally water along the coast
is very calm," says Danish archaeologist Bjarne Gronnow, of
the National Museum in Copenhagen*
But in the past five years, the sea ice has all but disappeared* Without its floating frozen shield, Greenland's coast
is being pummeled by storm surges originating hundreds of
miles away*When Gronnow visited the region last summer,
his team was barely able to land their Zodiac rafts on the
beaches because of waves almost 10 feet high*
Violent wave action is destroying 2,000-year-old sites once
The effect on the island s heritage has been catastrophic* occupied by the Thüle culture, the ancestors of modern Inuits.
Hardest hit have been sites associated with the Thüle culture,
tic warms up, archaeologists fear the frozen turf that covers
people closely related to the Inuit of northern Canada who
first migrated to Greenland around 2,000 years ago* The
Qeqertasussuk, a 4,500-year-old settlement where evidence
Thüle were formidable hunters and whalers, and their villagfor the earliest settlement of Greenland was found, may be
es were built close to the^shore*Today, Thüle houses - made
melting*Gronnow who excavatedthe remote site for the first
of stone and turf with whale-bone rafters are disappearing
time in the 1980s is headed back this summer, and he is not
with
"A
buried
tools
and
artifacts*
meter
quickly, along
per
optimistic/Tve been working in Greenland for 30 years now,"
season will be tumbled down to the beach and washed away," he says*"I can see with my own eyes how it has changed"
Gronnow says*"Its not a slow process*"
Older sites along the coast are also in danger*As the ArcAndrew Curry is a contributing editor at Archaeology*
www.archaeology.org

35
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Archaeology Magazine - March/April 2009

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