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Sustaining The Shell Middens: A Coastal Vulnerability Assessment Of Shell Midden Sites Within The Nansemond River Tributary, Mary Lawrence Young

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

Throughout history, coastlines have commonly drawn human settlements. However, modern environmental processes (i.e., shoreline erosion, sea-level rise, land subsistence, inundation) threaten to destroy much of our remaining global coastal heritage. To prevent the further loss of archaeological contexts, this study seeks to develop a coastal vulnerability index through geospatial analysis to assess the vulnerability of 35 precontact shell midden sites along the Nansemond River in Suffolk, Virginia. The Nansemond middens offer a long-term history of how coastal inhabitants interacted with their surrounding landscape, with occupation of the area ranging from the Early Archaic period through Contact. This research considers various …