GEOARCHAEOLOGICAL APPROACHES TO CULTURAL RESOURCES MANAGEMENT IN THE MURDERKILL WATERSHED: DELAWARE BAY, MID-ATLANTIC USA

The Murderkill watershed, located along the central Delaware Bay, is experiencing some of the fastest rates of sea level rise (SLR) in the Middle Atlantic. Cultural resources span the Late Archaic through the mid-19^th century, and many of those sites will soon be impacted by rising sea levels. Holocene SLR has influenced the landscape today, characterized by incised streams and rivers and encroaching marshland, which will lead to the destruction and loss of cultural resources within the watershed. To assess their vulnerability, we apply probabilistic model to predict future sea levels using the IPCC RCPs scenarios that can be visualized at the decadal level for specific sites. Projections under the High probability planning scenario indicate that the sea level may rise up to 1.53m by the year 2100, inundating most of the Murderkill River basin, adjacent wetland, and approximately 20% of archaeological sites. Moreover, upstream locations on tidal tributaries will get flooded or converted into salt marsh prior to the shoreline due to lower topography upstream than downstream. This presentation examines the Holocene geomorphology and archaeology of the shoreline and watershed, discusses geomorphologic landscape changes through time to contextualize the effects of future SLR on cultural resources, and illustrates how these scenarios may provide a useful planning tool for cultural resources managers and preservation planners.