C.I.L.P
The early Medieval period has often been referred to as the 'Dark Ages', associated with economic and cultural decline after the fall of the Roman Empire between the 5th and 11th centuries AD.
​
This is not entirely true -
It was a time of considerable change which saw:
1. The arrival + withdrawal of the Romans
2. The spread of Christianity,
3. Viking raids
4. Norse settlement
5. Gradual consolidation of smaller kingdoms
6. And the formation of the Kingdom of Alba (Scotland).
​
The aim of this project is to understand ‘the important others’: the common lay and monastic communities – their economy, environmental impact and the resulting impact of social change relating to Roman incursions into NE Scotland, the spread of Christianity and changing political boundaries.
​
A number of sites (see map: Yellow= cores already taken or about to be taken; orange intended future locations) have been selected for investigation. These include a combination of Roman forts located beyond the northern frontier where native farming communities lived; native settlement sites further away from Roman forts; & early monastic sites.
The sediments from the selected sites will be radiocarbon dated and analysed for fossil pollen, non-pollen microfossils, organic content, and geochemistry; and then the findings will be integrated with available historical and archaeological records.
What led to the design of this project?:
Between 2017-2022 I was employed on a Leverhulme funded project directed by Prof Gordon Noble entitled: 'The Comparative Kingship Project' undertaking palaeoenvironmental analysis to explore social-environmental change in early Medieval Scotland. This was a fascinating project and one of my main inspirations leading me to the design of this project.
​
The Leverhulme submission has been very successful. It should be noted though that officially somebody else is PI of the project I wrote. This unfortunately is quite a common situation for researchers to find themselves in due to the restrictions of funding bodies offering grants only to either only permanent staff members or to early career researchers. I fall in neither category and so a colleague offered to submit the project on my behalf.
The award was granted and there are already 5 first author publications - (3 published, 2 have been recently submitted). What I've tried to do with this website is acknowledge everybody who has contributed to the project and exactly what their contributions have been so that everybody gets the credit they deserve.
​
​
About the Project
Collaborators
I would also like to acknowledge all of the collaborators involved in this new project (Tim, Ewan, Maarten, Fraser, Antonio, Gordon) as well as the landowners who have granted us permission to extract sediments:
-
Tim Mighall, from the University of Aberdeen whose interests are detecting metal working using geochemical analysis from peat sequences and Palynology. He offered to submit the grant on my behalf to Leverhulme. He also came up with the new title.
-
Antonio Martínez Cortizas from the University of Santiago de Compostela, Spain is a major expert in Geochemistry and will play a major role in the geochemical analysis and interpretation of these results
-
Maarten Blaauw is a major expert in radiocarbon dating and Bayesian modelling and will play an important role in the age/depth modelling of the sediment sequences as well as with the publications.
-
Ewan Campbell is an archaeologist from the University of Glasgow and a major expert in early monastic Scotland and the Kingdom of Dal Riata in western Scotland. He will make a significant contribution towards the interpretation of results from the early monastic sites, particularly Iona & Tiree
-
Fraser Hunter from the National Museums Scotland in Edinburgh is a major expert in Roman Iron age Scotland. He also excavated Birnie. Fraser will contribute towards the Roman side of the project, the integration of historical and archaeological knowledge into the interpretations.
-
Gordon Noble from the University of Aberdeen is also an archaeologist and major expert in early Medieval Scotland, particularly the Picts in eastern Scotland. Gordon will also be helping with the integration of historical and archaeological knowledge into the palaeoenvironmental interpretations.