If nothing is done, artifacts and building ruins may be lost forever.
Archaeologists have published several scientific articles in the journal Antiquity, in which they declared the danger of climate change for world cultural heritage. If nothing is done, scientists warn, an incredible number of ruins and artifacts will be damaged or lost forever, reports Ancient origins.
One of the articles was written by Jargen Hollesen, an archaeologist at the National Museum of Denmark.
“Climate change is accelerating, exacerbating existing risks and creating new ones, the consequences of which can be devastating to the archaeological record. However, from a global perspective, very little is being done to protect archaeological data from climate change,” he said.
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The archaeologists who wrote the articles represent different countries of the world that are threatened by climate change. In all of them, archaeological sites, already discovered or still hidden, can be damaged by forces that scientists cannot control. human and animal remains. Rising sea levels can flood them, and droughts can dry them out.
The Tollund Man is one of the most important finds made in the peat bogs of Denmark. She lived about 2,000 years ago, but the conditions of the swamp preserved her body as well as if she had died several years ago.
“Archaeological findings show how organic materials can be preserved for thousands of years in wetlands,” said Professor Henning Matthiessen, who also works at the National Museum of Denmark and co-authored another paper detailing the dangers of climate change to cultural heritage. Matthiessen noted that almost half of the world's wetlands have already been lost, mainly due to development and urban sprawl. Climate change will only exacerbate this worrisome trend, he said, and because wetlands trap carbon, their loss could actually accelerate the process of carbon dioxide accumulating in the atmosphere.
And researchers are already observing the consequences of such changes. For example, in Somerset (England), the water level in the wetlands of Glastonbury Lake Village, once home to an Iron Age settlement (800 BC – AD 43), has dropped by almost by a third of a meter over the past four years. Drier conditions are not suitable for ancient artifacts, which decompose more quickly in the open air. This means that archaeologists have to effectively run a race against time, recovering as many artifacts as possible before they turn to dust.
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Climate change also threatens the world's oceans. Scientists analyzed studies that studied the impact of climate change on underwater archaeological sites. And these consequences are “ominous”.
Scientists fear that the increase in water temperature and acidity due to the additional absorption of carbon dioxide will lead to the rapid decomposition of artifacts still on the seabed.
Another problem is the expected increase in the number of extreme weather events. They can damage shipwrecks and other artifacts that are now protected by the surrounding conditions.
And these fears are not something hypothetical. In 2015, a severe typhoon in the Northern Mariana Islands severely damaged several World War II shipwrecks. It is impossible to determine the number of undetected shipwrecks that were destroyed by such storms.
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Scientists note that governments in some countries are developing plans to combat climate change. But only 34 countries are currently known to be developing such plans, and only 17 of them consider the implications for cultural heritage.
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