Lagoonscapes

The Venice Journal of Environmental Humanities

Preservation by Record of Ireland’s Shell Middens: Citizen Science Practice and Pedagogy

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Abstract

PRISM (Preservation by Record of Ireland’s Shell Middens) was a citizen science pilot in Ireland that mobilised volunteers to record vulnerable coastal shell middens through a digital reporting platform. The project enabled rapid documentation, targeted rescue sampling, and new radiocarbon determinations, while serving as a field-based teaching laboratory that tested place-based, co-productive approaches to at-risk heritage. By bringing deep-time archaeological archives into dialogue with contemporary climate hazards, PRISM, and similar projects, can advance environmental humanities practice and inform alternative climate adaptation strategies.


open access | peer reviewed

Submitted: Oct. 20, 2025 | Accepted: Nov. 17, 2025 | Published Dec. 18, 2025 | Language: en

Keywords Citizen science • Coastal archaeology • Place-based learning • Shell Middens • Climate adaptation

Copyright © 2025 Rory Connolly, Alan Healy. This is an open-access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction is permitted, provided that the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. The license allows for commercial use. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

Permalink http://doi.org/10.30687/LGSP/2785-2709/2025/02/008