Works of art carved into rocks and preserved for tens of thousands of years are being destroyed by climate change.
Coastal erosion, fires, floods and cyclones are among the extreme weather events predicted to worsen with global warming.
Archaeologists and historians now warn that serious damage has already been done.
A Flinters University symposium in Adelaide, Australia, was held in response to the Sixth Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which warned of a “possible” rise in global temperatures above 1.5 ° C. which will bring more extreme weather phenomena.
Some of the changes are now inevitable and “irreversible”, the report said.
Dr. Daryl Wesley, an archaeologist at the University of Australia, analyzed the devastation caused by Cyclone Monica, one of the strongest tropical cyclones in the country, which wreaked havoc on Arnhem Earth in 2006, according to a Guardian report.
He uprooted half the trees in an area 50 kilometers wide, throwing some in areas with works of art on rocks, destroying them. After that, fires came, which became more intense due to the thermal load it left behind.
The works are often painted in sandstone, which absorbs a lot of water. The heat from the fires spreads the water, the rock explodes and the murals are destroyed.
The archaeologist said that a number of environmental and human factors are already altering the art on the rocks and that changes have been recorded in the last 56 years.
Whether lost in catastrophic fires, desertification, rising sea levels due to coastal erosion, archeological sites will help educate researchers and site managers about how important heritage sites have survived previous environmental challenges and changes.
In the meantime, humanity must drastically reduce carbon emissions and adapt our lives to these rapidly changing conditions, said environmental history professor Alessandro Antonello, co-organizer of the symposium.
Climate change has become one of the most important and rapidly evolving threats to people and their cultural heritage worldwide. The remote archipelago of Pacific Kiribati in Micronesia, which has 33 islands, has undergone radical landscape changes in recent years and will be even more affected by climate change in the near future, the symposium participants said.
Archaeologist Ania Kotarba, co-organizer of the symposium, said the IPCC’s 6th Assessment Report “predicts how extreme weather and natural disasters will become increasingly part of our daily and seasonal lives”.
“People have been facing environmental challenges, extreme weather conditions and natural disasters for millennia,” he said.
“While the seriousness and speed of change is now new and pressing, archaeological and historical research can, and should, explore examples of communities adapting to rapid change, often in a sustainable way, and providing insights into the future,” he explained.
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