SEA LEVEL RISE AND SHELL MIDDENS IN THE RHODE AND WEST RIVERS, CHESAPEAKE BAY, USA

Holocene sea level rise in the Middle Atlantic is a particularly dynamic process, with high rates of isostatic subsidence, ground water extraction, and shifting sediment loads creating significant variability across short distances. This creates challenges for both the interpretation and preservation of archaeological sites. Several lines of recent research in the Rhode River/West River area of northwestern Chesapeake Bay explore this process during the Late Holocene and Anthropocene. Research includes sediment cores, shell midden analysis, and kayak-based survey for previously identified archaeological sites. Results suggest that even the relatively slow sea level rise during the Late Holocene produced shifts in shoreline locations that would have affected estuarine ecosystems and the people who depended on them. This process accelerated significantly during the Colonial and Historic periods. Today, increasingly rapid sea level rise, and associated shoreline erosion and deposition, can make it difficult to locate (or relocate) archaeological sites. Modeling, in this case, is an important starting point, but variability in sedimentation rates requires more localized studies to produce accurate reconstructions, and to contextualize or predict the locations of archaeological studies. A multi-pronged research approach provides the opportunity to explore the complexity of sea level rise processes in Chesapeake Bay, and provides an example of localized research with important implications for processes throughout the Middle Atlantic.