As the sea rises, America’s history can be washed away | Critical weather
Sean Romo stops digging when he sees a faint line emerging from the sandy soil of Virginia.
It’s just a slight color change, but to Romo, director of archeology for Jamestown Rediscovery, it could be another piece of the story of America’s origins.
“I think it might be the gate,” he said quietly.
Every inch of the ground holds an opportunity to reveal something that hasn’t been seen in daylight since at least the early 1600s.
“You can’t put a shovel in the ground without finding something,” Romo said.
Few places in the United States have the historical weight of this small island along Virginia’s James River.
This was the first permanent English settlement in North America, established in 1607. It was here that the first congress of American representatives met in 1619. It was here that Pocahontas married tobacco farmer John Rolfe. And it was here that the first enslaved Africans were forced to the coast, marking the beginning of a system of slavery that would shape the nation for centuries.
“In American history, it’s hard to have a bigger impact than Jamestown,” Romo said. “Everything begins here. Without Jamestown there is no modern United States.”
Archaeologists continue to unearth the past even as the land that holds it begins to disappear from rising waters.
History buried beneath our feet
The original James Fort was long believed to have disappeared from the James River until it was rediscovered in 1994. Archaeologists have now unearthed over 5m artefacts. Glass bottles, pottery, tools, beads and human remains have transformed historians’ understanding of England’s first successful colony and the people whose lives intersected here: English settlers, Powhatans and the first enslaved Africans brought to England and America.
But Jamestown is being attacked by rising waters. Sea levels here have risen by about 1.6ft over the past century. That is now accelerating and scientists are building three meters high or more by 2075. The James River slowly gnaws away at one side of the island while sprawling marshes crowd the other. Drill holes now often fill up after heavy rain or unusually high tides.
“We must always be careful,” said Romo. “But we need to increase the speed because we are very vulnerable to climate change. And the biggest for us is floods.”
A race against water
Ground-penetrating radar now helps researchers see what’s underground before they get out, allowing them to focus on high-risk areas. All excavations have become an exercise in determining which pieces of history can be preserved before the water reaches them.
Jamestown is among the most visible examples of a problem that occurs throughout America’s coastal areas.
Our burning of fossil fuels is warming the planet and melting the ice. Sea water is also rising as it warms, contributing to global sea level rise. By 2050, an estimated 2.5 million Americans, as well as many nationally significant historic sites, could experience severe coastal flooding, according to the nonprofit and science news organization Climate Central.
The coast is changing
“The map is changing,” said Rob Young, a coastal geologist at Western Carolina University whose team assesses climate hazards in all 107 coastal areas of the national park system. “And climate change and rising sea levels are causing that map to change faster than it has in the last 100 years.”
The results extend beyond archaeological sites. Flooded roads and parking lots are increasingly preventing visitors from entering national parks. Historic forts get a lot of water. The islands in the southeast are eroding so fast that some areas are almost invisible.
Young points to North Carolina’s Outer Banks, where homes continue to fall into the Atlantic as the coastline recedes. In 1999, engineers moved the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse about one and a half kilometers inland to protect it from the encroaching sea.
Some landmarks, however, cannot simply be moved to another location.
“We’re not going to move Fort Sumter,” Young said.
Instead, he says, the country will have to decide which areas can be truly protected and which may eventually be given over to a changing coastline.
“So no, it won’t look the way it does now to your children or your grandchildren,” said Young. “The trick for us as a community is to care enough to acknowledge that and have a good conversation across the country about what we’re doing about it and what we can save and what we can’t.”
Jamestown’s seawall, which dates back to 1902, has recently been reinforced with boulders to prevent erosion. This may buy time, but Romo knows that it is not a permanent solution and that the water will continue to change the landscape.
“If we do nothing, we will go from Jamestown Island to Jamestown Islands in the next 50 years. The time to act is now,” he said, “to protect this space and to ensure that future generations can still learn and experience the place where American history was made”.
