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Arctic archaeological sites threatened by climate change: A regional multi‐threat assessment of sites in south‐west Greenland
Author(s) -
FengerNielsen R.,
Elberling B.,
Kroon A.,
WestergaardNielsen A.,
Matthiesen H.,
Harmsen H.,
Madsen C. K.,
Stendel M.,
Hollesen J.
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
archaeometry
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.716
H-Index - 67
eISSN - 1475-4754
pISSN - 0003-813X
DOI - 10.1111/arcm.12593
Subject(s) - threatened species , permafrost , arctic , climate change , coastal erosion , geography , vegetation (pathology) , physical geography , archaeology , the arctic , erosion , oceanography , geology , ecology , geomorphology , habitat , medicine , pathology , biology
Climate change threatens many well‐preserved archaeological sites in the Arctic. The paper presents the first Arctic multi‐threat assessment focusing on the Nuuk region of Greenland. The results suggest that the majority of the 336 known archaeological sites are already exposed to impacts from microbial degradation, permafrost thaw and vegetation, and that these impacts will increase over the next 80 years. Additional impacts from coastal erosion are only noted at a limited number of sites due to a predominant consolidated and uplifting coast. The applied methods represent an important first step to identify threatened sites and emphasize important data limitations.