I had no Idea that my home state of South Carolina could be
so beautiful. A wildlife sanctuary with breathtaking panoramic views was only a
couple hours away by car. Pockoy Island, otherwise known as Botany Bay
Plantation Heritage Preserve Site, not only provides a stunning example of
nature’s wonders, but also serves as a site with extreme archaeological
significance.

On Monday, I took a trip through my
internship with the SC Department of Natural Resources to Botany Bay to aid in
the recovery of artifacts and learn about the harmful toll erosion is taking on
the coastal site. Over this excursion, members of the SCDNR demonstrated to my
peers and I the several different methods for recording shoreline
erosion. 

The most interesting of these methods
was the use of a drone to take hundreds of pictures of the Islands seaward side
to compare to photographs of past years.The drone itself was preprogrammed with
the path it was supposed to take up and down the shore. I watched in awe as It
sped across the island with total ease. Measurements taken by the drone will
later be analyzed to determine how much longer certain parts of the island will
be accessible. This erosion puts this culturally significant site and its
artifacts in jeopardy, as salt water aggressively eats away at artifacts that
are centuries old at the very least.

The latter half of the day after lunch
was spent observing the SCDNR team and other volunteers excavate a feature on
the beach toward the north end of the island. I was lucky enough to witness the
excavation of pottery sherds roughly the size of a softball. 

After a long day in the South Carolina
heat, my peers and I loaded back onto the DNR’s vehicles to make the journey
home. I’ll always cherish my time at Pockoy as a very educational opportunity
that showed me the urgency and importance of protecting these sites. The
unfortunate reality is that this drastic and rapid change is not unique to
Pockoy and is in fact, occurring in coastal areas around the country. I hope in
the future toward the solving of this cultural issue along with others.