Climate Change, Sea-Level Rise And The Archaeological Record

There is an urgent need for heritage researchers and managers to address the issue of climate change and its impact on archaeological sites. Yet, it was apparent from discussions at the Australian Archaeological Association's annual conference at Townsville in 1990 and a recent workshop in Canberra initiated by the Department of the Arts, Sport the Environment and Territories (DASET) (May 1991) that few heritage researchers are fully conversant with greenhouse issues, and that the process of discussion has only just begun. The DASET workshop will result in a publication outlining a range of potential climate change impacts on heritage resources and a strategy for dealing with these. As a contribution to these discussions this paper attempts to provide an introduction to greenhouse literature and issues, and in particular outlines some of the potential impacts of greenhouse effects on Aboriginal coastal sites. Greenhouse impacts need to be considered in the context of other ongoing impacts and these will be addressed in an upcoming review of coastal sites in Queensland.