At Vindolanda Roman Fort on Hadrian’s Wall, a new pilot by the Vindolanda Trust, Kassandra and the UK National Commission for UNESCO (UKNC) will use AI to turn millions of data points into real-time insights about what is happening beneath the ground. As climate change accelerates sub-soil drying, flooding and destabilisation, this first-of-its-kind predictive tools - one of the first anywhere in a UNESCO World Heritage Site globally - will help archaeologists identify risk, prioritise excavation and make decisions shaped by foresight rather than crisis.
Vindolanda Fort, situated near Bardon Mill in Northumberland, is internationally recognised for its unparalleled preservation of Roman archaeology. Its oxygen-free sub-soil has acted as a natural time capsule, protecting an extraordinary range of organic remains - from 5,000 leather shoes (including those of women and children) to leather boxing gloves, a wooden toilet seat, and the world-famous Vindolanda writing tables, which reveal intimate details of life at Rome’s northern frontier - from military matters to children’s birthday parties.
Yet only around 25% of the site has been excavated, and at the current pace, it may take more than 150 years to uncover the rest. Climate change is now rapidly accelerating the loss of these buried layers. Rapid swings between drought and saturation are destabilising the fragile conditions that have preserved Vindolanda’s archaeology for nearly two millennia. Predicting where damage is occurring and where it will strike next is becoming critical for deciding what must be excavated before it disappears forever.
To meet this challenge, the pilot will analyse the major environmental dataset established through the National Lottery Heritage Fund-supported Magna Project, which installed a network of probes across the site to monitor soil moisture, temperature, pH, oxygen-reduction potential and other vital indicators.
Dr Andrew Birley, CEO and Director of Excavations for the Vindolanda Trust, said:
“The site at Vindolanda has so much more potential, so many secrets yet to uncover. Our greatest fear is that these secrets will be lost before we can get to them. Harnessing the power of AI with tools developed by Kassandra give us a fighting chance of saving some of our most vulnerable archaeological deposits”
Kassandra will contribute £20,000 of specialist modelling support to prototype how AI can process archaeological multi-year datasets and generate predictive risk maps for the site.
For Vindolanda, this means building a digital twin of the fort and its surrounding landscape that fuses on-site probe data with climate and ground-condition projections. By running thousands of ‘what if’ simulations, Kassandra can explore how different climate futures, management actions or land-use changes might affect buried archaeology. The decision-support system then translates these complex analyses into clear, 3D map-based climate resilience scores and scenarios, giving heritage managers an intuitively understandable, practical tool to compare options, target resources, and plan timely interventions before damage becomes irreversible.
These maps will help the Vindolanda Trust:
- identify which archaeological layers are at immediate or emerging risk
- understand how sub-soil conditions may change under different climate scenarios
- prioritise excavation and protection of the most vulnerable deposits
- make site-management decisions based on evidence, foresight and risk
- move from reactive conservation to proactive, time-sensitive intervention
This will create a first-of-its-kind archaeological decision-support system, showing how AI can help protect heritage threatened by environmental change.
John Scott, Coordinator for the Hadrian’s Wall UNESCO World Heritage site partnership said:
“Our heritage lives within landscapes that are constantly evolving and never more so than now. To protect these heritage assets for future generations, our way of working must adapt with equal dynamism. Understanding change is the first step toward resilience.
Through our work with the UK National Commission for UNESCO on the Climate Change and UNESCO Heritage project, we quickly realised that the best solutions will often lie beyond our traditional work boundaries. They emerge when people share thoughts and insights from across sectors, interests and geographies. Global challenges need global solutions if they are going to really make a difference. It’s becoming very apparent that that’s the only way we can safeguard the story of us for the centuries to come.”
Dr Andrew Birley, CEO and Director of Excavations for the Vindolanda Trust:
‘The Kassandra project and the partnerships it has developed builds on the pioneering work of the National Lottery Heritage Fund–supported Magna Project and apply those lessons to the nearby site of Roman Vindolanda. It brings together vital archaeological information and climate modelling to help us make the most of the millions of points of data that are being gathered by probes buried under the ground on the archaeological sites. This helps us to understand which areas are under the greatest threat and how resilient our heritage may be to rapid climatic changes.
Climate change is a well understood threat to our future, what is less known, but just as impactful, is that a rapidly changing climate is also a critical threat to the fragile remains of our collective past.’
Mark Cannata, Founder and CEO of Kassandra, said:
“UNESCO World Heritage Sites like Hadrian’s Wall and Vindolanda are on the frontline of climate change, but they can also lead the way in how we respond. Confronting the greatest crisis humanity has ever had to face requires unprecedented decision-making clarity to strengthen our collective resilience. Clarity that drives change at a transformative pace and on a massive scale. And herein lies the problem: the scale of what needs to be done is daunting and can be overwhelming. This is a major impediment to effective decision-making as it misses many of the root causes and potential solutions of what is a complex system. But complex does not mean complicated and here is where Kassandra can help, giving heritage managers a clear, shared picture of what tomorrow might look like, and the time to act before damage becomes irreversible. If we get this right, digital twins and decision-support tools of this kind will become part of everyday conservation practice, helping us look after the world’s heritage with the same intelligence and foresight that created it.”
Matt Rabagliati, Head of Policy, Research & Communications, UK National Commission for UNESCO said:
“This is ultimately about using AI and data in new and integrated ways to make decisions in a fast-changing landscape. By combining on-site monitoring with climate modelling and AI, we’re trialling a tool that gives heritage managers and local partners a clearer view of what’s happening beneath the soil, and what is likely to happen next. That kind of foresight helps people, communities and organisations to prioritise, plan and protect together before loss becomes irreversible.”
Prof Rob Collins, Professor of Frontier Archaeology, Newcastle University said:
“Our heritage was created in the past, but we must protect it for our future. Climate change will not only affect our daily lives, but also many of the aspects that we cherish - sites like Vindolanda and the incredible archaeology of Hadrian’s Wall World Heritage Site.
The partnership with the UK National Commission for UNESCO, the Vindolanda Trust, and the Kassandra project to use cutting edge technology to digitally model the impacts of climate change on heritage has been both fascinating and terrifying - but ultimately rewarding. This ground-breaking work provides valuable insights for understanding change that will let us be more proactive in safeguarding World Heritage for future generations.”
Bringing multiple datasets together
The pilot builds on the Shared Outcomes Fund (SOF) Climate Change & UNESCO Heritage (CCUH) programme, led by the UK National Commission for UNESCO and Department for Culture, Media and Sport in partnership with the Hadrian’s Wall World Heritage Partnership, which has brought together multiple datasets along Hadrian’s Wall, including climate projections, LiDAR, hydrological modelling, land-use data and on-site monitoring results, into a new heritage data catalogue.
This integration ensures that the predictive tool will consider:
- site-level environmental monitoring
- wider landscape climate trends
- ground-condition models
- historical excavation data
- predictive scenario planning
It represents one of the first attempts to create a joined-up, multi-source climate and archaeology dataset across a UK World Heritage Site.
A new way of making decisions for a changing landscape
Once developed, the tool will support the Hadrian’s Wall World Heritage Site in understanding:
- where archaeology is at immediate risk
- where targeted interventions are most urgent
- what future climate conditions may look like at specific points on the Wall
- how to plan for long-term resilience at a landscape scale and where to focus resources
This offers a model for how UNESCO World Heritage Sites can use AI and environmental data to adapt to climate change, protect buried heritage, and make choices guided by foresight rather than crisis.
