On October 18th @Kent_Online reported on a Roman Villa found by @kentarchaeolog1 using Google Earth. The article didn't show the actual image so I dug it up and removed the plough marks. The clip shows the 2007 Google Earth image that triggered an excavation at Trottiscliffe #PastLandUse #Roman #Archaeology

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The cluster of earth rampart and ditch hillforts in the Southern Uplands is so intense it’s difficult to see anything else but, with a little jiggery-pokery, it’s possible to isolate a second cluster of tiny, stone rampart forts along the western seaboard and focused around Dunadd.

#archaeology #Scotland #HillfortsWednesday

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As we move into the Iron Age, we see a concentration of small, defended hilltop enclosures in the Southern Uplands, especially around the Tweed Basin.

Hillfort data is available here: https://hillforts.arch.ox.ac.uk

#archaeology #Scotland #HillfortsWednesday

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Settlement patterns are remarkably uniform during the Bronze Age, with small unenclosed roundhouse groups found right across the country. These range from single huts to groups of ten or more. It’s only at the end of the Bronze Age we begin to see a change, in the south, where we see defensive enclosures like here at Bodsberry Hill.

https://canmore.org.uk/site/47288/bodsberry-hill

#archaeology #Scotland

#PastLandUse 26

It’s in the Bronze age where we see an increase in the enclosure of small fields and effort made to increase soil fertility. Soils were often poor to begin with, or becoming depleted by overuse, so increasing soil depth, by importing soil from elsewhere, or improving the soil quality, by adding manure and other organic matter, became common.

https://scarf.scot/national/scarf-bronze-age-panel-report/3-lifeways-and-lifestyles/3-4-agriculture/

Image:

https://canmore.org.uk/site/29005/drumturn-burn

#archaeology #Scotland

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In Scotland, the Bronze Age is a period of great change, not just in climate but in people. Studies show this period as a time of migration. Archaeological science now has many ways to investigate population movement. Strontium and oxygen isotopes differ due to geology and build up in the body in youth while DNA can be compared and matched across populations.

https://www.ed.ac.uk/news/2022/bronze-age-women-changed-genetic-landscape-of-orkn

http://www.bajrfed.co.uk/bajrpress/continuing-adna-analysis-of-neolithic-and-bronze-age-people-in-the-british-isles/

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/no-wait-real-ava-bronze-age-woman-scottish-highlands-180970950/

Image: Maya Hoole

#archaeology #Scotland

#PastLandUse 24

By the Bronze Age, the landscape was changing. A deterioration in the climate saw many settlements, predating this time, submerges under a blanket of peat. This, combined with the large areas of land cleared for farmland and wood manifests, in some areas, as landslides. Most are recorded to the period around 1800 to 1300 BC. In many areas today we only see the prehistoric settlement where the peat slides downslope, away from the ridges.

#archaeology #Scotland

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A fundamental component of early farming communities would have been common grazing and common woodland. These leave little or little trace beyond the remains of the animals themselves and the tools used to process them. In terms of archaeological remains, could these be some of the areas where we see an absence of occupation?

https://scarf.scot/national/scarf-neolithic-panel-report/4-lifeways-and-lifestyles/4-1-food-and-drink/

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14614103.2018.1536498

#archaeology #Scotland

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Enclosure had benefits: clearing land., separating livestock from crops, and sheltering crops but, communally, enclosure became about ritual. It’s the Neolithic where we see the rise of the communal building of huge, enclosed monuments like cursus and henges, and the building of massive stone mortuary monuments like the Cairn of Heathercow. The concept of enclosure had a profound effect on the land and the psyche.

https://canmore.org.uk/site/8851/seater-cairn-of-heathercow

#archaeology #Scotland

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Early fields are often unenclosed. The modern world is so enclosed it is hard for us to imagine not enclosing our space but, it looks like enclosure for early agricultural communities was more about practicalities, the main one being keeping animals separated from the crops. One of the earliest recorded enclosed landscapes is Scord of Brouster, where six fields were identified beneath the peat.

https://canmore.org.uk/site/405/scord-of-brouster

#archaeology #Scotland

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To address the bias in archaeological databases, a new survey was initiated, using a new methodology, to map past land use. In Scotland, the Historic Land-use Assessment systematically mapped the entire country, using all available sources, and recorded both current and relict land use. Forts, like Newstead here, are classified as both rectilinear fields and Roman military site.

https://map.hlamap.org.uk/

Photo:

https://canmore.org.uk/file/image/923287

#archaeology #Scotland

https://mastodon.scot/@WulfgarTheBard@archaeo.social has produced a great thread on Scottish archaeology all linked with the #PastLandUse hashtag. Well worth a look.
#PastLandUse
#Scotland #Archaeology #ScottishArchaeology

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Here's a link to a short video of how the National Record of the Historic Environment (Canmore) was populated, based on the creation date of each record. Watch out for the work of the Ordnance Survey Archaeology Division. It starts in the 1950s and sweeps south before returning back north and culminated, by its end in the 1980s, in the most comprehensive nationwide field survey of Scotland to date.

https://youtu.be/mtgoWAlu7eU

#archaeology #Scotland

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We need be careful when creating distributions and interpreting archaeological data. Data has been collected for over 200 years and what the main databases contain is not a comprehensive list of sites and monument but the culmination of survey to date. They contain many types of bias with the main one being survey bias.

In this example, I interpret it as, many archaeologists live in the cities and don’t like to drive too far to survey.

#archaeology #Scotland

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Regional differences can be seen at least as early as the Neolithic. One of the most defined distributions of this period are recumbent stone circles which are located, almost exclusively, in the lowlands of the northeast.

https://canmore.org.uk/search/site?SIMPLE_KEYWORD=recumbent%20stone%20circle

#archaeology #Scotland

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Neolithic houses seem familiar because of the preservation of buildings like Scara Brae:

https://canmore.org.uk/site/1663/skara-brae

In Orkney, geology provided the perfect building slabs. Elsewhere Neolithic buildings are far more varied. Often oval across the islands:

https://canmore.org.uk/site/149414/eigg-rubh-an-tangaird

Rectangular timber halls are found on the mainland:

https://canmore.org.uk/site/36670/crathes-warren-field
But the majority, most likely lived in circular huts:

https://highland.esdm.co.uk/Monument/MHG60228

#archaeology #Scotland

#PastLandUse 15

The earliest recorded house in Scotland is 8000 years old. It was found during the construction of the Queensferry Crossing.

https://headlandarchaeology.com/the-queensferry-crossing-driving-into-the-future-while-looking-into-the-past/

https://canmore.org.uk/site/333438/south-queensferry-echline-fields

The nomadic Mesolithic population was tiny but, from the beginning, there was an ambition to modifying the land. One of the earliest monuments, in Scotland, is a line of pits, near Crathes, known as the ‘hunter-gatherer calendar’ :

https://archaeology.co.uk/articles/news/mesolithic-timelords-a-monumental-hunter-gatherer-calendar-at-warren-field-scotland.htm

https://canmore.org.uk/site/36670/crathes-warren-field

#archaeology #Scotland

#PastLandUse 14

The climate for early farmers enabled them to cultivate at quite high altitudes, much higher than is possible today. This means that early agricultural landscapes can be found in areas of hill moorland and pasture. Back then, these upland landscapes would have been very different. They would have been covered with forests, full of wildlife and mostly peat free. Today, a ‘high tide’ line of prehistoric agriculture survives in upland areas.

#archaeology #Scotland

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So much data in now available it’s time consuming to review it all manually. Like most areas, archaeologists are beginning to use technology to reduce the workload. Machine learning is starting to be used to help detect monuments on air photographs and lidar.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UaVxJ8i-pBU

Most work in is focused on prospection. My personal interest is to extract detail to aid mapping, such as in these tests, where I am trying to isolate lazy beds on Lewis.

#archaeology #Scotland

#PastLandUse 13

So much data in now available it’s time consuming to review it all manually. Like most areas, archaeologists are beginning to use technology to reduce the workload. Machine learning is starting to be used to help detect monuments on air photographs and lidar.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UaVxJ8i-pBU

Most work in is focused on prospection. My personal interest is to extract detail to aid mapping, such as in these tests, where I am trying to isolate lazy beds on Lewis.

#archaeology #Scotland