Rising seas, raging storms, melting ice and forest fires are exposing artefacts that have much to tell us about our history on Earth – from sunken shipwrecks to the ancient waste dumps filled with bones, shoes and carvings that are emerging all over the Arctic and further south. They  could soon be lost forever, destroyed by weathering and pests.

In Norway’s Svalbard archipelago, receding sea ice has opened up previously inaccessible areas. This has enabled investigation of the estimated 1000 shipwrecks in the region, dating from 1596 to the mid-20th century. But shipworm (a mollusc that consumes wood, previously absent from such cold waters) has  now been discovered in local driftwood. It could potentially destroy most of the artifacts.  Meanwhile, in Walakpa Bay in northern Alaska, for instance, where a 4000 year old collection of the frozen artefacts of the native Alaskan Iñupiat people is thawing, its contents are crumbling into the sea.  A single storm can wash away a site.

Recent advances in archaeological techniques mean that we can now extract detail from old artefacts about the lives and environments of ancient peoples. For example, the isotopes found in dental plaque can reveal an individual’s diet and where they travelled. And ancient DNA can uncover the genetic histories of crops and livestock – information that could help us adapt the species we rely on to climate change and better understand creatures that are economically important, such as cod, and how they lived before Earth’s habitats were affected by human activity.

Archaeologists are now calling on their peers to postpone their work on better preserved sites and focus on these disappearing treasures before it is too late. Efforts are under way to collaborate on retrieving as much of the material as possible and storing it for future study.  (based on a New Scientist article by Aisling Irwin)

Why is this of interest to Epicureans?  Because, for peace of mind and the future of our children and grandchildren, we have to help keep the issue of climate change constantly before the public and ensure that the politicians don’t succumb to pressure from Big Oil and Gas to open the Arctic wastes to some gold rush of exploitation and the further destruction of the fragile environment. As it is, the Arctic stores huge quantities of methane that is presumably starting to be released into the atmosphere.  We should focus more on this part of the world.