Archaeology and Climate Change

[Imperial Dave]

https://the-past.com/feature/archaeology-and-climate-change/

Obvious in reality...

[Ian61]

Afraid so. Unfortunately its been going on for a long time. the picture of

The remains of Woodstown promontory fort, near Annestown, Co. Waterford, on the rapidly eroding Copper Coast.

reminded me of the iron age wall across the Bolt tail in South Devon that is also a 'promontory fort' that I have walked through many times but has been losing area due to erosion. The thing now of course is the accelerated nature of the erosion due to climate change and the rising sea level.
Of course this affects most of our coastline - even nearer to me on the Dorset coast is a hill called 'Golden Cap' the name refers to the yellow sandstone (curiously what geologists call a 'greensand!')at the top that is exposed only due to fairly regular slippage on the coastal side as the sea creeps ever inland. The other flanks of the hill are all nicely green. It is the regular exposure of new rock that of course helps make this area such a haven for fossil collectors.

[Ian61]

It does not take a lot of thought to put together an extensive lists of other historical sites that are perilously close to the edge. How many castles etc were built there deliberately. Probably the most famous place being eroded is Whitby where both the Abbey and St Mary's Church are taking damage to buildings and associated land.

[Imperial Dave]

As an aside, I went to school at Sudbrook which has an amazing promontory fort that has slowly been eroding into the sea for the past 2000 years.

As a kid I used to play football on the pitch that is effectively "inside" the fort itself.

On one side, the 20 foot high fort banks kept the ball from disappearing when kicked out of play. Counterbalanced with the other side where there was a 40 foot drop onto the beach and sometimes the ball was lost to sea

 

[Imperial Dave]

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[CarlL]

Thanks for the link, Dave.

Some spectacular photography.

CarlL

[Imperial Dave]

You can just about make out the football posts in the middle of the fort

 

[Ian61]

You can just about make out the football posts in the middle of the fort

 

Yup