Responding To A Dynamic Environment – A Long View Of Coastal And Maritime Communities In North Wales
This interdisciplinary paper will explore the relationship between traditional ways of environmental understanding, within Welsh coastal and maritime communities, and contemporary perceptions of coastal erosion driven by rising sea-levels and greater storminess at sea. The focus of study will be the coastline of Gwynedd in North Wales. The paper will take a broad chronological view of the topic in order to explore the long-term evidence for changes along the coast and communities’ response to these. Within this region physical evidence for coastal change is present within the: Celtic myths of the Cantre'r Gwaelod; submerged forests of Cardigan Bay; erosion of prehistoric and historic landmarks such as Dinas Dinlle; the loss of farmland due to sand inundation and in the proposed total evacuation of the township of Fairbourne. Using methodologies drawn from archaeology, landscape history and physical geography we will explore past, present, and future human responses to life within this dynamic coastal landscape. We will conclude that through human engagement with the maritime and coastal landscape, communities make sense of change by creating historically situated narratives, and that such narratives offer an alternative, and timeless, alternative to the dehumanising logic of science.Ìý
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