In 2018, North Carolina experienced the impacts of two major hurricanes - Hurricane Florence and Hurricane Michael. These storms altered the shape of coastal communities, including the cultural and archaeological resources that lie at or below sea level along the shorelines. As a result, the National Park Service released Emergency Supplemental Historic Preservation Funds for emergency-declared states and territories to assess, characterize, and mitigate damages to historic properties and archaeological sites. The NC Office of State Archaeology received funds to identify, document, and evaluate impacts on coastal archaeological sites and cemeteries and develop mitigation strategies for future site preservation. This paper provides an overview of the two projects, including their inception, significance, and placement within the larger context of changing coastal environments in coastal North Carolina.

The NC OSA has recently completed fieldwork for the NC Coastal Historic Cemetery Survey Project. This research, funded through a NPS Emergency Supplemental Historic Preservation Fund grant, was designed to identify, document, and assess the condition of historical cemeteries on state lands in nine coastal NC counties impacted by 2018’s Hurricanes Florence and Michael. This paper will examine climate, storm, and human impacts in post-contact period cemeteries recorded along NC’s coastline and Outer Banks regions. It will examine how these forces may impact publicly, privately, descendant, and unknown owned cemeteries, including their preservation, management strategies, outreach, and use.

Just off the north coast of Hatteras Island on North Carolina’s Outer Banks, sits an isolated 0.01-acre parcel, tantalizingly called “Cemetery” in county records. While something cultural is visible beneath the shallow waters via satellite imagery, locals profess no knowledge. As a part of a wider coastal cemetery survey, NCOSA explored the site in late 2023. This paper will discuss what was found as well as offer a cautionary tale of necessary active site stewardship of historic resources in imperiled coastal environments.

Coastal terrains are highly variable, energetic, and in flux, presenting unique challenges for the survey and documentation of terrestrial archaeological sites. The North Carolina State Office of State Archaeology’s (NC OSA) Shorescape project encountered a range of field conditions during the terrestrial archaeological surveys within state-owned land in Tyrell and Onslow Counties along the North Carolina coast. This paper presents the field methodologies developed by NC OSA and AECOM prior to fieldwork, the unique challenges terrestrial archaeologists faced while working in dynamic coastal environments, and the field method adaptations and strategies developed to meet these challenges and carry out the terrestrial surveys.

As part of the North Carolina Shorescapes project, AECOM determined shoreline change rates at 22 terrestrial archaeological sites in Tyrrell and Onslow Counties. Methodologies were based on the North Carolina Division of Coastal Management and its 2019 study of annual erosion rates, which did not include many of the sites identified during the 2023 Shorescapes survey. AECOM utilized historic aerial imagery and LiDAR data from 2001, 2014, and 2019 to establish previous rates of erosion and used these data to develop predictive GIS models which project sea level change at high tide levels for the archaeological sites into 2025, 2035, and 2065. Predictive models were then used to support mitigation strategies and understanding the potential impact timeline.

In late 2023, AECOM performed an underwater archaeological remote-sensing survey concurrently with terrestrial archaeological investigations on behalf of the North Carolina Office of State Archaeology. The remote-sensing survey employed a marine magnetometer, side-scan sonar, and sub-bottom profiler and was performed in particularly remote and challenging areas. Following data collection and analysis, AECOM identified three shipwreck sites, two potential cultural targets, and two potential submerged paleo landforms. NC OSA later dove the three shipwrecks and two targets. This paper highlights the challenges associated with data collection in remote areas and summarizes the results of both the remote-sensing and dive investigations on the sites and targets.

Even without the threat of sea level rise, many coastal archaeological sites are under threat of, or are, actively eroding away; sea level rise and the increasing frequency and intensity of storm events will only exacerbate the issue. With all of the known, and unknown, archaeological sites along our shores, an overriding question is how do land managing agencies make the best use of limited funds to manage these impacts to our archaeological heritage and make the choices of which resources to protect (and conversely, which ones to allow to disappear). This paper examines the findings of the North Carolina Office of State Archaeology’s Shorescape project and discusses the various management strategies that the state could pursue, including examples of how other agencies are managing similar issues.

Sea level rise and intensifying storm systems are an increasing threat to many archaeological sites throughout coastal North Carolina, including submerged archaeological resources. While shoreline erosion presents the greatest threat to terrestrial resources, maritime resources present different challenges with respect to climate-driven impacts. The maritime cultural resources identified during the North Carolina Office of State Archaeology’s Shorescape project allow for a holistic view of how to ensure long-term preservation of these resources and mitigate climate-related impacts across a range of sites including maritime infrastructure, shipwrecks, and formerly exposed landscapes. This paper summarizes the findings of the maritime component of the Shorescape project and discusses the potential mitigation strategies for the preservation of North Carolina’s coastal heritage moving forward.