Maritime Heritage at Risk

Dr. Lynn Harris has an ongoing “Maritime Heritage at Risk” project funded since 2016 by a National Park Service Preservation Training and Technology (PTT) Grant. The project provides student training in rapid in situ, state of the art documentation on diverse case studies of coastal cultural heritage situated both on land and underwater. To facilitate a national need in cultural resource management, researchers from different disciplines work together to adapt and develop several technologies and techniques, both low and high cost. Each selected case study site has state or national historic significance, conservation management challenges and serves as an intellectual platform to segue between preservation of an historic icon and research questions that will be utilized to develop student theses and dissertation topics.

For additional information on this project, please visit the project website.

Historical shoreline positions since 1848

Historical shoreline positions since 1848 for the Portsmouth town to Ocracoke (Contributed by ECU Geology Department)

Students document the remains of a historic house on Portsmouth Island, NC.

ECU graduate students document the remains of a historic home on Portsmouth Island, NC (Photo by Lynn Harris).

Students document deterioration of boat house on Bald Head Island, NC.

ECU graduate students document deterioration of a historic boat house on Bald Head Island, NC (Photo by Lynn Harris).