Climate change is rapidly destroying cultural heritage sites across the Arctic.
The Arctic is warming faster than the global average. Rising temperatures and sea levels are linked to rapidly thawing permafrost and increased coastal erosion, which pose a danger to Arctic archaeological sites, threatening both scientific knowledge and cultural heritage. However, climate-driven risks to these sites have not been thoroughly examined.
Video: An archive on the brink: Lise Lotku reveals what a 16th century whalers’ burial site can teach us about working-class life in Europe’s first oil industry, and gives a stark warning about the threat climate change poses to this unique cultural heritage treasure.
Researchers Lise Loktu from the Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research and Elin Therese Brødholt of Oslo University Hospital, Norway, have been looking at the preservation patterns at the 17th-century whaling site of Likneset in the Svalbard archipelago.
“These skeletons show us the human cost of Europe’s first oil industry.
“As permafrost thaws and coastal erosion accelerates, we are losing entire archives of human lives that can never be replaced. We are not only losing landscapes, but also the human stories preserved within them.”
“What we are seeing in these skeletons is the physical imprint of one of Europe’s first global industries. We can see how labour, diet, disease, and mobility left physical traces in the people who took part in early Arctic whaling. Many of these men died very young, yet already show clear signs of heavy physical strain, disease, and nutritional stress.”
Comparing the results of excavations from the 1980s to those from the 2010s, the team observed a significant increase in erosional damage to grave sites along the coastline.
The most dramatic decline was seen in textiles, which were found to be well-preserved in the 1980s excavations, but were almost completely degraded by the 2010s.
This study also confirmed that graves at Likneset preserve detailed information about the illnesses, mortality, and working conditions of early Arctic whalers. For example, the skeletal remains, which composed mostly of young adult men, revealed extensive physical stresses and malnutrition, and it was likely this that caused the whalers’ deaths, rather than any specific trauma.
These results reveal rapid, climate-driven degradation of a valuable archaeological site in Svalbard, similar to trends observed in other Arctic regions.
Altogether, these data suggest that current Arctic cultural management practices, which prioritize a limited selection of heritage sites, will not be able to keep up with the pace of climate impacts.
Click on this link to access, Skeletons in the permafrost: Exploring climate-driven heritage loss and occupational health at the early modern whaling burial site of Likneset, Svalbard, published in PLOS One.
