Salvage archaeology: When rising seas threaten to wash away history

ST. TAMMANY PARISH, LA.—The Gulf of Mexico is creeping up over centuries of history south of New Orleans. Inching up through the timeline, Civil War-era forts are now abandoned ruins. Next up for inundation: temporary settlements from around a century ago, along with who knows what else.

The threat of losing long-abandoned settlements may seem minute compared with the millions of people and billions of dollars in economic resources at growing risk as rising seas threaten the Louisiana coast. But to Brian Ostahowski, an archaeologist, the chronicling of Louisiana’s disappearing coastal history is one small area – amid the state’s sprawling, multipronged coastal protection efforts – where he can make a difference.

“I just want to record this before it’s gone,” says Mr. Ostahowski on a gray, humid morning in early June, as he surveys a small beach on Rabbit Island, a narrow spit of marshland about an hour’s boat-ride northeast of New Orleans. “Maybe not to have all the answers, but at least to have them available, so if somebody has a research question [in the future] we’ll have recorded that for them.”

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