Editorial: Green archaeology

Frontispiece 1. Increased storminess, unusual wind patterns and sand erosion, all linked to climate change, exposed the remains of this ship in 2024 on the coast of Sanday, one of Scotland's Orkney Islands.Stormy seas also played their part in wrecking the ship in 1788.Collaborative community-led historical and archaeological research have identified it as the Earl of Chatham: a former Royal Navy frigate HMS Hind repurposed and renamed as a whaling ship.As such, it saw active service during the sieges of Louisbourg and Quebec, intended to extend and protect British colonial interests in North America, and as a commercial vessel exploiting the Arctic seas to supply the British industrial revolution's demand for whale oil.It was built with wood from south and south-west England, which is now being conserved in a freshwater tank at Sanday Heritage Centre.Changes to coastlines, the rates of which are predicted to accelerate in the coming decades, are likely to reveal and threaten many similar heritage sites and their political ecologies in the future.