In the Pacific Northwest, coastal areas have been attractive places to live for more than 10-thousand years. Native American villages dotted the coastline until the early 1900s, leaving a rich archeological record of the people and cultures that lived there.

But now many of those sites are eroding away – a process that is being accelerated by climate change. This is raising questions about how to protect these sites from the ravages of the ocean, and people illegally hunting newly-exposed artifacts.

Jes Burns of our EarthFix team reports.