Maritime Site Protection and the Fetch Method: an example from Rogaland, Norway

Abstract

Predictions of future requirements for the protection of maritime archaeological sites are made using the fetch method which has been developed to evaluate the quality of landing‐places and navigable channels. The very useful method may explain why archaeological sites along the coast are rare in some areas, but numerous in others. Many of them are vulnerable to destruction by the effects of climate change, especially rising sea‐levels, based on the IPCC scenarios. The objective fetch method can be used worldwide to predict where new finds of sites close to sea‐level can be expected, and also to predict a site's vulnerability.

Key words:

• fetch method
• threatened maritime archaeological sites
• landing‐place
• navigable channels
• climate‐change scenarios
• rising sea‐level

Acknowledgements

We thank the anonymous referee, the editors and John F. Smedstad Moore who corrected the English. We are also grateful to the Museum of Archaeology, University of Stavanger that granted funding for the language correction through the Foundation for Female Research Initiatives and the Norwegian Research Council.