Sand, Wetlands, and Waves: 

    sea-level rise, ancient territories, and the marine socioenvironmental context of Pre-Columbian  Puerto Rico.

Isabel Rivera-Collazo, Director, Scripps Center for Marine Archaeology and Associate Professor, Biological, Ecological and Human Adaptation to Climate Change,  Department of Anthropology, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego

Photo courtesy of Isabel Rivera-Collazo

Abstract: Sea level has risen dramatically since the Last Glacial Maximum 25,000 years ago. Data from Colombia, Venezuela and Central America suggest that the earliest settlements of the Pan-Caribbean region date between 16 – 13,000 years ago, and thus occurred in a dramatically different landscape than that of today. Based on existing evidence from land, the earliest occupations on the Caribbean Archipelago occurred at some point between 8 – 5,000 years ago, at a time of rapid drowning of coastal lowlands around the world. In this presentation, Prof. Rivera-Collazo explores sea level rise and coastal change, and how the indigenous people from the Caribbean, and on Borikén specifically, responded to those changes from the initial occupations to the 16th Century, before the European invasion.

About the speaker: Prof. Isabel Rivera-Collazo is the Director of Scripps Center for Marine Archaeology and Associate Professor in Biological, Ecological and Human Adaptations to Climate Change at Scripps Institution of Oceanography and the Department of Anthropology at UC San Diego. Focused on Puerto Rico, Prof. Rivera-Collazo’s research centers on sea level change, vulnerability of heritage to climate impacts, the dynamism of coastal geomorphology, and human response to climate change.

Monday, December  12, 2022

6:00 pm  EST

Institute of Fine Arts–NYU- via ZOOM

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