The uncomfortable truth: The impact of climate change on the preservation landscape of the Vindolanda Tablets

The writing tablets discovered at Vindolanda provide a unique window and perspective into a life and time which cannot be gained from any other source. The discoveries have come from a fragile and finite resource of anaerobically preserved deposits which have remained stable for almost two millennia. Unfortunately, over the past five years the archaeologists at Vindolanda have started to witness rapid changes taking place within the buried preservation environments which questions the future survival of the anaerobic layers at the site and potential for the recovery of many more letters. The most recent excavations have uncovered the rapid decaying remains of the last timber forts, with shrinking posts, the loss of textiles, insects, and the degradation in the condition of leather artefacts like shoes and tent leather. Each of these are warning signs that the resilience of the anaerobic layers at the site have reached or exceeded their limits in coping with climatic changes.

The Vindolanda Trusts response has been to commission a series of deep probes which in now uses to constantly monitor the health of the buried archaeology. They measure pH, the Oxygen Reducing Potential, temperature, and soil moisture and link those measurements to data obtained from a site weather station to establish how strongly the changing climate and the rapid loss of anaerobic layers may be bonded. The data from the probes has revealed a deeply uncomfortable truth. The climate above the site is having a direct impact on the preservation landscape below the ground and what was once considered safe is no-longer the case. This makes the historic recovery of ink and stylus tablets from Vindolanda, and the host of other environmentally preserved artefacts, even more important than before as a preserved site archive. Because in the coming decades there can no-longer be a guarantee that such artefacts will continue to survive to be found.