Moving archaeology to a 4d-science: A novel interdisciplinary approach to the study of resilience in prehistoric marine coastal environments

The PastCoast project studied how people in the past reacted to changes in the nature around them. By studying coastal and near-coastal sites, especially those discovered through the use of metal detectors, the project provided new and important insights into past landscape changes and people's use of coastal areas. Previously, such sites rarely had information beyond the artifacts and their find spots. Artifacts can indicate age and possibly the site's use, but it is rarely known whether they come from random activity or have been plowed up from underground structures. PastCoast used high-tech and non-invasive geophysical measurement methods that can detect structures in the ground without digging. The PastCoast project collected large amounts of geophysical data and compared these results with the distribution of artifact finds, activity traces, and studies of paleolandscape developments. This allows us to say more about the types and speed of landscape changes. Such landscape studies can teach us much more about the sites. At some sites, smaller, targeted field investigations were conducted. All information is collected in a digital mapping program, and all collected data is available through NTNU. In the long term, we hope that the results from the PastCoast project can be an important contribution to studies of how people in the past adapted to changing landscapes, and also show how we can respond to similar changes caused by climate change in the future, as well as preserve cultural and natural landscapes threatened by climate change. The PastCoast project was carried out by researcher Arne Anderson Stamnes at the Department of Archaeology and Cultural History at NTNU University Museum in Trondheim, in collaboration with the National Museum in Copenhagen and Aarhus University – Denmark. Additionally, the project had close cooperation with Museum Odense, Svendborg Museum, North Jutland Museums, Museum Thy, and Roskilde Museum in Denmark, as well as Orkland and Ørland municipalities in Norway.

This interdisciplinary project has led to a series of publications in peer-reviewed journals, scientific reports and data repositories, and impact different audiences. Archaeologically, the project has focussedon possible human responses to changing environmental settings, by undertaking geophysical investigations of coastal sites known from metal detecting assemblages and provided methodological insight by a state-of-the-art study of the resilience of prehistoric coastal settlements and environments by demonstrating the added value of an interdisciplinary perspective combining geophysical, palaeoenvironmental and archaeological sources. Knowledge of human reactions to changes in the past raises awareness of how people altered their lifestyle, which might impact the acceptance of facing similar future changes. Leading such a project to success, and collaborating with the host institutions, have provided the applicant with enhanced skills and experience, and established new networks for future collaboration. This, in turn, will be valuable for the home and host institutions. In fact, this has fostered at least three future research collaborations with the host institution.

This project aims to study changes and breakpoints in utilising prehistoric marine coastal environments, identify possible causes for changes, and create an interpretive framework to identify potential human responses to changing environmental settings. This will be done by combining non-intrusive geophysical survey techniques, palaeoenvironmental studies, trial excavations and digital landscape modelling in an interpretive framework to study human resilience in a changing coastal landscape. Geophysical survey methods provide knowledge of the presence and absence of archaeological features in the ground over large areas in a fast, efficient and non-intrusive manner at a scale not feasible by conventional archaeological methods, and provides a wealth of palaeoenvironmental information. This involves detailed studies of fossil beach ridges, which provides an unprecedented impression of spatial and temporal landscape change. Paired with targeted excavation, for quality control (ground-truthing), and to provide datable evidence, geophysical survey and surface-find studies can tackle important questions of chronological change and generate a new perspective on the cultural-historical development of coastal sites, and their resilience and adaption to a changing landscape. Also, a GIS-modelling approach can reveal spatial patterns of prehistoric activity on a landscape scale and how it might have changed over time by characterizing how much a site location is depending on particular site location parameters at different times. Ultimately, such an interdisciplinary approach can provide further knowledge and understanding regarding the significance of coastal archaeological sites in time and space in a larger cultural-historical perspective, illuminate threats to coastal settlements from future effects of climate change, and how similar threats have been mitigated in the past and an evidence base for future management of cultural and natural landscapes at risk.