The Arctic CHAR Project: Climate Change Impacts on the Inuvialuit Archaeological Record

• Published in: Les Nouvelles de l'archéologie
• Main Author: T. Max Friesen
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: French
• Published: Editions de la Maison des Sciences de l'Homme 2015
• Subjects: archaeology; climate change; Arctic; Inuvialuit; Mackenzie delta; CC1-960; Canada; Mackenzie Delta; Climate change; permafrost
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.4000/nda.3098; https://doaj.org/article/dc98cbf958644ad0a87d8ca770b168b7

Around the circumpolar North, archaeologists and heritage managers are growing increasingly concerned about the destruction of archaeological sites due to modern climate change. This paper describes the Arctic CHAR project, designed to address this issue in the Mackenzie Delta region of northwestern Canada. The Mackenzie Delta is home to the Inuvialuit, whose rich history is recorded in many coastal sites. Due to permafrost melt and increasing relative sea level, these sites are being destroyed at an alarming rate. Arctic CHAR consists of two main components: survey to assess the condition of heritage resources across the region, and excavation of the most important threatened sites.