Lost to the Sea: Maine's Ancient Coastal Heritage
Learn about the effects of sea level rise on Maine's shell middens.
Reservations
Not Required
Pricing
- Suggested Donation: $5.00
Location
Mather Auditorium
Maine’s coastline hosts over 2,000 Native American shell middens. Composed of clam and/or oyster shells, faunal remains, and scattered artifacts, these sites record thousands of years of cultural and paleoenvironmental information…and virtually all are eroding in the face of climate change-induced sea level rise and altered weather patterns. Archaeologists and geologists are working together to develop strategies to assess what remains of these important archives of the past, and how to best use limited resources to the recover precious data.
This presentation will introduce listeners to the middens, what we know about the people who built them, the environmental treasures the middens hold, and how we hope to build a citizen science network to save important information.
Suggested donation of $5 per person. Support for the Ted Exford Climate Stewards lecture series is provided by Dave & Loretta (Exford) Hoglund.
Alice R. Kelley is an Associate Research Professor in the Climate Change Institute and an Instructor in the School of Earth and Climate Sciences at the University of Maine. She is a geoarchaeologist and is interested in human/environment interactions. She has worked at archaeological sites in Maine, Newfoundland, the Shetlands, and Peru.
