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Recent global projections of climate change highlight alarming rates of flooding and erosion on the coastlines of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). Though there are indisputable links between climate change and the deterioration of maritime cultural heritage (particularly coastal archaeology), deterioration is often the result of multiple compounding factors, central among which are anthropogenic landscape alterations. In this article the authors attempt to disentangle these factors at a small scale, using the Gaza Strip, Libya, and Oman as case studies. They examine the impact of accelerating coastal erosion, flooding, and increasing frequency of tropical cyclones to question predominant discussions on the impact of climate change on heritage. They emphasize methods and practices for the identification of sites that can expand and refine climate change research (often reliant on data from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries) through the long-term perspective archaeology is uniquely placed to offer.

ABSTRACT:During the winter storms of 2019, a deposit of organic-rich clay was fortuitously exposed in the intertidal zone of a beach near Streedagh (Co. Sligo). Impressed in the clay surface were a series of small (<10cm) paired indentations arranged in rough alignments. Their size and shape suggest that they are animal tracks; possibly red deer but not excluding sheep/goat. Animal tracks in Holocene sediments are well-documented from intertidal contexts in Great Britain but, to date, none have been reported from Ireland. This paper describes these tracks and discusses their chronological and paleoenvironmental context. Radiocarbon dating of the clay surface places it between ~7300–6300 cal BP, though for taphonomic reasons the tracks are argued to have been made later in the Holocene: probably after 5800 and before 4000 cal BP As such, the deposit provides an example of palaeoenvironmental evidence, that can be found even under the high-energy conditions characteristic of the Irish coast, and hints at the possibility that Holocene ichnological evidence can also be found here.

•Satellite-Derived Bathymetry (SDB) extracts water depth from satellite images.•SDB applied to 2 ancient harbour sites: Tyre and Ras Ibn Hani.•SDB performs poorly for cultural feature detection.•SDB performs better for landform detection and palaeo-geographic reconstruction.•SDB archaeological utility depends on study area conditions and research questions.