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CLIMATE CHANGE & ENVIRONMENT

Climate change could destroy not only the future, but also the past

London: Archaeologists are warning that climate change not only poses a threat to future generations, but could also damage the past by destroying remains dating back to the Bronze Age. According to a report in Yorkshire Post, the warning comes as part of a conference at Bradford University in the UK, which discussed the damage global warming has done to the sites of archaeological interest across the north Atlantic. A prominent point discussed at the conference was that rising sea level, coastal erosion, changing weather patterns and melting ice sheets has meant that evidence of Viking settlements is being lost. Research work in this regards has been done by the staff of Bradford University, who are now working to identify sites which are at risk of being lost forever as a result of climate change. "In the past archaeological finds in places like Greenland have been found in the permafrost beneath the surface frozen in time. Cloth, organic materials and textiles can be preserved but now these ice sheets are being lost," said Stephen Dockrill, Bradford University's senior lecturer in archaeology. "One of the biggest problems we are facing in the north Atlantic is rising sea level and changing weather patterns causing more coastal erosion, cutting into cliff faces where lots of archaeological sites are based," he added. According to Dockrill, Bradford University have people working at a site in the Faroe Islands, where there is evidence of the very first Viking settlers who arrived there, which is being eroded. Dockrill said that the damage caused by global warming to sites of historical interest had increased in the past two years. "We are also seeing erosion of deposits in this country in places like the Orkney islands, with remains from the Neolithic and Bronze Age under threat," he said.
-Sept 2, 2008

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