As Seas Rise, American History Could be Washed Away

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BY BEN TRACY, SENIOR CLIMATE CORRESPONDENT ON ASSIGNMENT FOR CLIMATE CENTRAL

Sean Romo stops digging the moment he sees a faint line emerge in the sandy Virginia soil.

It’s just a slight change in color, but to Romo, director of archaeology for Jamestown Rediscovery, it may be another piece of America's origin story.

"I think it might be a gate," he says quietly.

Around him, archaeologists kneel in carefully measured squares, scraping away the dirt one thin layer at a time. The work is slow by necessity. Every inch of soil holds the possibility of revealing something that has not seen daylight since at least the early 1600s.

"You can't put a shovel in the ground without finding something," Romo says.

Few places in the United States carry the historical weight of this small island along Virginia's James River.

This was the site of the first permanent English settlement in North America, founded in 1607. It was here that America's first representative assembly convened in 1619. It was here that Pocahontas married tobacco planter John Rolfe. And it was here that the first enslaved Africans were forced ashore, marking the beginning of a system of slavery that would shape the nation for centuries.

"For American history it's hard to have more of an impact than Jamestown," Romo says. "It all starts here. Without Jamestown there is no modern United States."

A History Buried Beneath Our Feet

It was long believed the original Jamestown Fort had disappeared into the James River until it was rediscovered in 1994. Archaeologists have now unearthed more than five million artifacts. Glass bottles, pottery, tools, beads, and human remains have transformed historians' understanding of England's first successful colony and the people whose lives converged here: English settlers, the Powhatan people and the first Africans brought to English America.

Archaeologists continue to uncover the past even as the place preserving it is beginning to disappear.

Jamestown is under attack from rising waters. Sea level here has risen about 1.6 feet over the last century. That’s now accelerating and scientists project another three feet of rise or more by 2075. The James River steadily chews away at one side of the island while expanding wetlands encroach from the other. Excavation pits now regularly flood after heavy rain or unusually high tides.

"We always have to be meticulous," Romo says. "But we do need to pick the pace up because we are under severe threat from climate change. And the real big one for us is flooding."

A Race Against the Water

Ground-penetrating radar now helps researchers identify what lies beneath the surface before they ever break ground, allowing them to focus on areas most at risk. Every excavation has become an exercise in triage to decide which pieces of history can be saved before the water reaches them.

Jamestown is among the most visible examples of a problem unfolding all along America's coastlines.

Our burning of fossil fuels is warming the planet and melting its ice sheets. Seawater also expands as it gets hotter which contributes to sea level rise around the world. By 2050, an estimated 2.5 million Americans, and many of the nation's most treasured historic sites, could face severe coastal flooding according to Climate Central. 

The Coastline Is Changing

"The map is changing," says Rob Young, a coastal geologist at Western Carolina University whose team is assessing climate risks at all 107 coastal units of the National Park System. "And climate change and rising sea levels are making that map change more quickly than it was 100 years ago."

The consequences extend far beyond archaeological sites. Flooded roads and parking lots increasingly restrict visitor access to national parks. Historic forts experience more frequent inundation. Barrier islands along the Southeast are eroding so rapidly that some landscapes are becoming almost unrecognizable.

Young points to North Carolina's Outer Banks, where homes continue to collapse into the Atlantic as the shoreline retreats. In 1999, engineers moved the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse nearly a quarter mile inland to protect it from the encroaching sea.

Some landmarks, however, cannot simply be relocated.

"We're not gonna move Fort Sumter," Young says.

Instead, he argues, the country will have to decide which places can realistically be defended and which may ultimately have to be surrendered to a changing coastline.

"So no it's not gonna look like what it looks like now for your kids or for your grandkids," Young says. "The trick for us as a society is to care enough to admit that and have a good national conversation about what we do about it and what we can save and what we can't."

Buying Time, Saving History

Jamestown’s seawall which dates back to 1902 was recently reinforced with giant boulders to prevent erosion. This may buy time, but Sean Romo knows it is not a permanent solution and that water will continue to change the landscape. 

"If we do nothing we're gonna go from Jamestown Island to Jamestown Islands in the next 50 years. The time to act is now," he says, "to protect this space and to make sure future generations can still learn about and experience the place where American history was made."