The Geographer: Archaeology (Spring 2015)

The

Geographer SPRING 2015

The newsletter of

the Royal Scottish Geographical Society

A Year of Archaeology “I think the age of exploration is just beginning, not ending, on our planet.”

• Uncovering North Atlantic Sagas

Dr Robert D Ballard, RSGS Livingstone Medallist

• Alaska and Easter Island • Colin Prior’s Stunning Landscapes • The Geography of the Past • Børge Ousland Interview • Coastal Change and Melting Culture • Reconstructing People, Places and Planet • Reader Offer: The Polar North

plus news, books, and more…

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015 is a busy year. It is designated as a year of archaeology, of sheep, of soil, of food and drink, of evaluation, of mud, and of light, amongst other things. 2015 also has a significance in many areas of current global interest, from the various national conflicts and the launch of the Eurasian Union, to the review of Millennium Development Goals and new negotiations over climate change mitigation.

Mike Robinson, Chief Executive RSGS, Lord John Murray House, 15-19 North Port, Perth, PH1 5LU tel: 01738 455050 email: enquiries@rsgs.org www.rsgs.org Charity registered in Scotland no SC015599 The views expressed in this newsletter are not necessarily those of the RSGS. Cover image: Easter Island www.shutterstock.com Masthead image: © Mike Robinson

Dig It! 2015 is a year-long celebration of Scottish archaeology, co-ordinated by the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland and Archaeology Scotland.

From children taking over museums, and people exploring the story of their own local area, to digs, festivals, competitions, hidden relics and lost worlds, there are so many ways for people to get involved. At its heart, Dig It! 2015 will explore the theme of identities – forged where people, places, the planet and the past meet.

See page 19 for more.

Fair Maid’s House Visitor Centre The Fair Maid’s House education and visitor centre is open to the public over the summer months, and all are welcome to come and explore. The normal opening hours this year will be 1.00pm to 4.30pm, Tuesdays to Saturdays, 7 April 2015 to 24 October 2015; groups can request a special visit at other times.

Admission is free, but donations towards the RSGS’s work are always welcome.

visit us

The centre is manned entirely by volunteers, so if you are planning a special journey you may wish to check in advance that it will be open. Email us or phone us on 01738 455050 for further information about visiting, or to ask about being a volunteer guide.

Fair Maid’s House Opening Times 2015 1.00pm to 4.30pm - Tuesday to Saturday - 7 April to 24 October

Ness of Brodgar Orkney is host to a plethora of archaeological discoveries of historical artefacts and wonders. In 2014, after 27 days of digging at the 5,500-year-old Ness of Brodgar, it came to light that it was most likely a former Neolithic temple, set at the heart of the community, surrounded

by Skara Brae, the Ring of Brodgar, the Standing Stones of Stenness and Maeshowe tomb. The discovery of broken weapons (which appeared to have been damaged deliberately) as well as evidence of Neolithic artwork, also suggested that it may have been used as a ‘ritualistic complex’ by the people of the island. Work continues in the area in July and August 2015 and, after a fruitful summer last year, there will be high hopes of further discoveries to come.

RSGS: helping to make the connections between people, places & the planet

archaeology

Alongside these geographical issues, 2015 is an important year for RSGS. With the support of our members and funders, we have achieved a great deal over the past few years, and I believe we are now in a good position to achieve a step change in the way we operate and are perceived. We have been gradually closing the gap in the Society’s operational budget, we have awoken a network of hundreds of people with an interest in geographical issues, and we have received very positive feedback from a wide range of contacts. So we know that much of what we are doing is taking RSGS in the right direction.

The challenge I took on six years ago was to refresh and modernise RSGS, and to make the Society financially sustainable – probably for the first time in its long history.

Whilst I like to think that we are achieving the first aim, there is still more to do to achieve the latter. Having put such effort into strengthening our credibility (now perhaps at an all-time high) and boosting our profile, 2015 is a critical year for finding new income.

I believe we are truly on the verge of transforming RSGS, with its members, its volunteers, its activities, its community, into an even more dynamic, highly-regarded and successful charity. But as Iain Stewart said in the latest annual report,“The ‘trick’ of this coming year is to capture this momentum and channel it towards increasing profile, growing the membership, and finding donations and other funding to keep this remarkable small charity running into the future.”

If there is a time to support RSGS and help us continue to operate at the current level, or to do even more, then 2015 is the year we would particularly ask you to help.

Year of Archaeology

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Photographic Exhibition

The Polar Academy Time to leave for the Arctic Craig Mathieson, RSGS Explorer-in-Residence Well, it’s time. The training is complete, the kit has arrived, and all the logistics are in place. As I write this, we only have three weeks until we leave for the Arctic for the very first Polar Academy Expedition.

Education concerns We are still hearing a good deal of concern about the current situation in schools Geography. The RSGS/SAGT Task Group for Geography has made further representations to SQA regarding issues of over-assessment and the administrative burden at National 4, National 5 and Higher, along with the level of support and guidance being offered in different schools.

Most commonly, schools are currently opting for eight subjects, but many have opted for (in order) six, seven or even five National 4 and 5s (equivalent of Standard grades).

This inconsistency has the potential to lead to educational inequalities, but it is also the narrowness that is of concern, with one school already reporting a 70% reduction in uptake of Geography as a result.

Another common concern includes the teaching of two or even three levels (N4/N5 and Higher) in the same class. Are you experiencing bi-level (or tri-level) teaching, and if so what is the impact?

And with a range of other concerns largely focused around a lack of timely guidance on expectations and standards and a concern that pupils are being over-assessed, are you experiencing more or less paperwork and pressure for assessment?

If you are a teacher, parent or pupil, we are keen to hear from you about your experience so that we can build a fuller picture of how these changes are impacting across Scotland. Please contact our education officer (rachel.hay@rsgs.org) or your local SAGT representative.

YouTube Channel RSGS’s new YouTube channel is now up and running. Featuring interviews with people such as polar explorer Børge Ousland, renowned British climber Leo Houlding, and RSGS President Professor Iain Stewart, it’s the perfect place to go for a dose of adventure inspiration.

With topics ranging from first ascents to solo expeditions, and from geology to polar bears, there is something there for everyone. The RSGS YouTube channel serves as a unique opportunity to get up close and personal with some of the world’s leading explorers, and hear their insights into their attempts to break the boundaries of human achievement in the name of exploration, discovery, science and geography.

For the past 18 months I have given my all to ensure the success of the Polar Academy, sitting in countless meetings, giving countless talks and presentations, trying to raise funds to take these ten young adults on a life-changing expedition.

It’s been difficult, in fact it’s the hardest challenge I’ve ever faced; however, when you are truly passionate about what you believe in, every day is a privilege.

Having been to the Arctic many times, I already know that this expedition will change the lives of the ‘10’ forever.

In fact, even being involved with the Polar Academy has changed them. Jim is the father of Sara, our youngest expedition member…

Jim: “For me, the Polar Academy has been a blessing that came just at the right time for Sara. A year ago she was struggling after just having come through a bad time. The Polar Academy has quite simply been life-changing in terms of Sara’s outlook on life. Since Polar Academy, I have become more secure and happier about her future.”

Preparing the skis for the expedition.

Sara: “For me, the Polar Academy was the light at the end of the tunnel. I feel that it has given my life a positive new direction.

It has changed the way I think and perceive things.

Endurance training on the West Beach at St Andrews.

But most importantly it has put many smiles on my face and has made me a happier person.”

I could have chosen any parent of any kid on the expedition, they all say similar things; however, when the ‘10’ return from the ice and talk to their peers about their entire journey, that’s when we’ll see the true results. As the reason I chose this particular group of ten shy, introvert and lonely teenagers is because, through all this, I could see the greatness in every single one of them – it was just buried too deep for them to see it.

In June this year they will speak to a minimum of 24,000 of their peers, truly inspiring them, showing them what can be achieved with the right levels of determination and effort. They will be true Role Models in their community.

Wish us luck and I’ll speak to you all soon.

Craig

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The third annual Scotland Rocks Higher Geology and Physical Geography conference for pupils and teachers was held in Perth on 7-8 March. Over 100 people were involved in creating a real buzz about all things Geo! Over the weekend, participants pieced together the geological history of the coastline at St Monans, were inspired by Dr Hermione Cockburn (Scientific Director of Our Dynamic Earth) and Dallas Campbell (BBC TV presenter), and enthused about minerals, tsunamis, soil, climate change, flooding, GIS and studying geology/geography at university. Teachers also had opportunities to discuss their experiences of delivering the new National Qualifications, and to consider the future of Geology and Earth Sciences in the curriculum.

RSGS President, Professor Iain Stewart, prepared a video message to welcome everyone to the RSGS’s visitor centre on Saturday evening, and Bruce Gittings and Mike Robinson presented Dr Ruth Robinson with an Honorary Fellowship, in recognition of her outreach work with GeoBus at the University of St Andrews. Pupils and teachers alike described the event as “engaging”, “informative”, “amazing”, “inspiring” and “fun”, and we very much hope to run the event again in 2016.

Special thanks go to our volunteers: Lorna Ogilvie, Hannah Stott, John Simpson, Ben Jackson, Fiona Forbes, John Lewington, Freda Ross and Peter Buckley.

This year’s event was supported by the Mining Institute of Scotland, The Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining, Edinburgh Geological Society, Education Scotland, the University of Dundee and The Open University.

RSGS as KE/PE Partner The need to determine outstanding research impact on the economy, society, culture, public policy and services, health, the environment and quality of life – within the UK and internationally – is a necessary attribute when applying for RCUK and wider research funding.

Increasingly, pathways to impact are becoming more prominent in grant-awarding bodies. Universities need to demonstrate productive engagements with a wide range of public, private and third-sector organisations, as well as engagement directly with the public.

RSGS can provide a direct conduit to this range of activities through designation as a Co-Investigator and Research Partner, to provide the Knowledge Exchange (KE) and Public Engagement (PE) activity of core research proposals by supporting academics with this increasingly key aspect of research grant requirements.

RSGS provides a substantial network to disseminate research findings to diverse audiences, including members, general public, academics, special interest groups and decision-makers. We have a cross-sector network of contact with international geographical and related societies, universities and schools, national and local government, the business community, and third-sector organisations, throughout Scotland and internationally, particularly with regard to issues concerning climate change.

University News

Scotland Rocks

As an education charity, we have expertise in publicising and popularising scientific research on a wide range of key geographical issues: • we have a well-informed membership; • we organise a prestigious national programme of public talks throughout Scotland; • we produce a high-quality newsletter that tackles some of the more pressing issues in geographical research debated today; • we develop curriculum-based activity for schools at all levels; • we oversee a peer-reviewed academic journal; • we have a well-resourced public visitor and education centre located in Perth; • we have a growing following across social media platforms.

For further information and to discuss potential projects, please contact Mike Robinson at RSGS HQ.

Placement John Simpson, an MSc Water Hazards, Risk and Resilience student from Dundee University, has been working with our Education Officer to develop new teaching materials about flooding and flood management in Perth. John is now going back to university full-time to focus on his dissertation, which will be about coastal erosion in Portugal. We have enjoyed working with him, and wish him every success in the future.

In January, reports emerged of a close shave for Tutankhamun’s treasured burial mask. It is alleged that in late 2014 the Pharaoh’s beard was dislodged and was glued back on using an inadequate adhesive, leaving a clearly visible mark at the join between chin and beard.

It was thought that the damage done to the mask might be irreversible, but Egyptian authorities have stated that, whilst the repair operation is delicate, the damage is not necessarily permanent. An investigation into the handling of some of Egypt’s most treasured artefacts by the Ministry of Antiquities remains ongoing. Hopefully, the contention surrounding ‘the boy king’ and his beard will not deliver any further hairy moments.

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Tutankhamun’s Beard John Martindale (left) from Larbert High, his pupils, and others from Perth and Aberdeen, quizzed BBC TV presenter Dallas Campbell (fourth from right) about his career, and asked him to sign the atlases in their goody bags, which were kindly donated by HarperCollins publishers.

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Keep Exploring…

Legacies and donations remain one of the most important ways of supporting the RSGS’s work. Many of our achievements over the past 130 years have only been possible because of money received from RSGS supporters in their Wills, in memory of loved ones, or in donations. Perhaps most notably, the Livingstone Medal, one of our most prestigious awards with which we have recognised a glittering list of recipients, was endowed in 1901 by Dr David Livingstone’s family in his honour.

We are delighted to have some extra help in the office this spring from Christopher Mann, who has been appointed as Events & Media Assistant for three months, funded by the Scottish Government’s Adoptan-Intern scheme.

Chris, a recent graduate, has been working particularly on supporting membership events and raising public profile, and we are sure that he has a great career ahead of him.

Please consider leaving a legacy or giving a donation to help us continue our work. Contact Mike or Susan at RSGS HQ if you would like to discuss this in more detail.

WS Bruce Medal We are calling for nominations for the WS Bruce Medal, awarded every five years for first-hand development of polar science.

The recipient should have added to an area of research relating to a wide spectrum of work: Zoology, Botany, Geology, Meteorology, Oceanography or Geography.

The award is made by the RSGS Research Committee, and jointly awarded with the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the Royal Physical Society. It was first presented in 1926 to JM Wordie for his oceanographical and geological work in both polar regions, and was last presented in 2010 to Dr Alison Cook for her work on coastal changes in the Antarctic Peninsula.

OS Photofit Competition Ordnance Survey has launched a photography competition for 2015, looking for the best photographs of Great Britain to feature on the covers of over 600 paper map titles – the OS Explorer, OS Landranger, and OS Tour series.

Nick Giles, Managing Director of Ordnance Survey Leisure, said “We’re really excited about the launch of the photography competition and expect to receive a great selection of images that capture the beauty of Great Britain’s rural and urban landscapes. This is a ‘money can’t buy opportunity’ and a chance for your photo to feature on the shelves of high street retailers.”

For over 223 years OS has been mapping Great Britain and producing maps which have become the envy of the world. In 2014, nearly two million paper maps were printed, seeing an increase in sales for the first time in a decade.

OS Photofit will run during 2015, with closing dates staggered for different map bundles.

See os.uk/photofit for full details of the competition.

RSGS Grants The RSGS grants programme, which has part-funded hundreds of expeditions and research projects over many years, is currently being revised by the RSGS Research Committee, and we are not inviting new applications for the time being. Grant guidance notes and an application form will be posted on our website as soon as they are available.

University News

Adopt-an-Intern

But you don’t need to be related to a famous explorer to make a difference. Legacy gifts have kept the RSGS going through lean times in the past, allowing us to continue, to develop and to grow. We still receive occasional gifts of maps, books, artefacts and images. But they all require money to preserve, protect and exhibit.

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In 2001, explorer Robin Hanbury-Tenison received the RSGS Mungo Park Medal in recognition of his outstanding contribution to exploration, campaigning for the rights of tribal people, and the creation of a greater understanding of the wider world. Now he is undertaking a series of eight challenges ahead of his 80th birthday – one for each decade.

His first challenge will be the London Marathon on 26 April.

Following this he will be climbing the four highest mountains in the British Isles; skydiving; cave abseiling down the Titan shaft, the deepest pitch in Britain, and out of Peak Cavern, England’s deepest cave; and water-skiing across the English Channel. Clearly you are never too old for adventure.

EDINA recognised The Bartholomew Globe is awarded for excellence in the assembly, delivery or application of geographical information through cartography, GIS and related techniques.

In February, RSGS Board Member Margaret Wilkes presented the Globe to Peter Burnhill and the staff of EDINA, for their work in providing online resources for UK schools and universities.

If you would like to nominate somebody for one of our medals or awards, then please use the form on our website and return it to us here at RSGS HQ.

Meet the explorer!

New UHI Geography Degree The University of the Highlands and Islands is offering a new BSc (Hons) Geography degree course, based in Inverness and Stornoway, starting in September 2015.

Not only is this a new geography degree in two new locations in Scotland, it is also an accelerated degree which will allow students to graduate in three years rather than four. The degree will be delivered through online and face-to-face learning, and fieldwork will be a major component, with residential fieldtrips to the Cairngorms and the Swiss Alps, as well as local daytrips. See www.uhi.ac.uk/geography for details.

University News

Robin Hanbury-Tenison: 8 things for 80

Doug Allan FRSGS Anybody who has enjoyed BBC series such as Ocean Giants and Human Planet will have seen the quality of wildlife cameraman Doug Allan’s work. From scenes shot on the dizzying heights of Mount Everest to close-ups of killer whales hunting in Antarctica, Doug has provided some of the most memorable wildlife images ever captured. So, hearing the stories behind these awesome images, from the man described by David Attenborough as “the toughest in the business”, was truly inspirational, and we were thrilled to award Doug (right of picture) an Honorary Fellowship of the RSGS, which was presented to him by RSGS Chairman, Roger Crofts.

Doug perfectly embodies our Inspiring People series. We hope that his achievements can inspire the latest generation of Scotland’s graduates to use their passion and knowledge of the natural world to raise awareness of the geographical and environmental issues which affect us all.

Lewis Pugh’s record-breaking swims In February, UN Patron of the Oceans, pioneer swimmer and RSGS Fellow Lewis Pugh took on an extreme challenge – five recordbreaking swims in the freezing waters of Antarctica – to gain global support for his campaign to make the Ross Sea a Marine Protected Area. He said, “My hope is that these symbolic swims in this Polar Garden of Eden will bring the beauty and wonder of Antarctica into the hearts and homes of people around the world, so they will urge their governments to protect this unique ecosystem.”

Sixteen lucky P1/2 pupils from Forgandenny Primary School came to visit us to speak to our explorer-in-residence, Craig Mathieson. They tried on old and new kit, and saw lots of photos from Craig’s adventures in the Arctic and Antarctica.

He also told them about the Polar Academy, and his preparations for his expedition to Greenland in April.

“The children have been very enthused with what they heard in this session. When asked in assembly what their dreams are for the future, many of them answered that they wanted to be an explorer or ‘go to the North Pole’. Brilliant! We are now doing a whole school ‘dreams for the future’ display board.” said teacher Mel Duffy.

The five swims formed the most challenging and dangerous swimming effort ever undertaken. Donning only Speedo trunks, Lewis broke the world record for the most southerly swim in three of his five swims. As well as the obvious dangers of subjecting his body to the stresses of sub-zero water, Lewis was swimming in seas patrolled by killer whales and leopard seals.

130th anniversary appeal To celebrate the RSGS’s 130th anniversary, we hope to create an engaging promotional resource that can be used by RSGS Local Groups, universities and other partners to explain something of our extraordinary heritage, to champion the cause of geography in Scotland, and to inspire more people to get involved in the subject and in the RSGS. We are sending a fundraising appeal to ask our members to help us with this project. Please support the appeal if you can.

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Inspiring People in schools

After his fascinating talk for the RSGS about travelling around the world by human power for 13 years, Jason Lewis agreed to give an impromptu talk to around 50 S1-S6 pupils and staff at Perth High School. The audience was captivated by his tales of pedalling his small boat across oceans, and rollerblading

across the USA!

2014-15 Inspiring People We have hosted some fantastic speakers throughout the 2014-15 Inspiring People programme, now drawing to a close. Doug Allan attracted record audiences in Dundee and Dunfermline, where he spoke in front of a home crowd, and also visited two local high schools to tell pupils about his career and experiences of capturing some of the most iconic wildlife images ever seen. We welcomed Joseph Thomson’s great-great-nephew to speak in Dumfries, Galashiels and Ayr; and Tracy Edwards entertained with anecdotes from her time spent sailing round the world.

The talks programme relies on the help of our Local Group Committees, so we would like to thank them for their vital support, and applaud their tremendous hosting skills which our speakers comment on time and again.

We are always looking for new and exciting speakers to take part in the programme, so if you have any ideas please contact Alexa on alexa.martin@rsgs.org or 01738 455050.

Bob Scott Memorial Acquisition Fund Bob Scott, who died in October 2013, was an ex-Provost of Perth and a much-valued Fair Maid’s House and RSGS collections volunteer.

Two new teaching resources have been uploaded onto our website – about Jason Lewis and Tracy Edwards, two of our speakers from the 2014-15 programme. If you have suggestions for other teaching resources you would like to see, please let us know.

An exploration first Many people say there are no more ‘firsts’ to achieve in global exploration, but the advancement of technology shows that there are many more firsts to be claimed yet. In the footsteps of the great aeronautical pioneers, Solar Impulse intends to achieve the First Round-The-World Solar Flight in 2015, after 12 years of research, tests and development.

Housing and health In March the former Auditor General for Scotland, Robert Black, told a Chartered Institute of Housing conference in Glasgow that investment in housing could address a growing crisis in Scotland’s health and inequality, and that spending on housing should be seen as a preventative measure. He said, “Today, a serious lack of affordable housing and poor quality housing continues to damage the health and life chances of thousands of families and individuals in Scotland. To avoid a health and inequality time bomb, Scotland must build more homes and improve the quality of existing stock.” Scottish government figures suggest about 13% of households are affected by dampness or condensation, or both, while 39% are in fuel poverty.

Bob Scott (left) with other members of the

The event was attended by Colin Collections Team.

Stewart, and Mrs Anne Stewart, Bob Scott’s sister. Mike Robinson said, “Bob was such a lovely man with time and a kind word for everyone. We are pleased to be able to establish this fund to further aid the improvement of our collections and to honour the memory of one of our most popular volunteers.”

Earliest human?

In March, the journal Science published the discovery of a jawbone and five teeth thought to be 2.8 million years old, redefining what we understand about the history of our human ancestors. The fossil was found by a research team from Arizona State University, on an Ethiopian hill in the Afar region of Ledi-Geraru, close to where the wellknown fossil ‘Lucy’s body’ (just 3 million years old and thought to be more primitive than this specimen) was previously discovered. Pre-dating the former oldest human remains discovered by approximately 400,000 years, it is believed that the jawbone belonged to a specimen of Homo lineage which was capable of solving problems using brain rather than brawn, and begins to show an early, adaptive transition towards modern, human behaviour. A truly ground-breaking discovery.

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In a world so reliant on fossil fuels and so used to air travel, could this aeronautical first really change how we travel in the future?

Sir Alan Cobham, one of the founding fathers of modern aviation and the 1928 RSGS Livingstone Medallist, could very well have been talking about this latest challenge in aviation when he said, “If the present seems less satisfactory, we ought to do something about it; we shouldn’t take refuge from it in mere nostalgia. One ought to engage with the future and grapple with it.” We are sure he would have approved of Solar Impulse.

In March 2015, we hosted a reception at RSGS HQ where Bob’s good friend, Councillor Willie Wilson, presented nearly £1,000 (raised by Bob’s friends and family) to Mike Robinson.

The money will begin a small acquisition fund which will allow us to actively secure further artefacts for the RSGS collections for the first time.

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The geography of the past: a North Atlantic saga Professor Kevin J Edwards, Department of Geography & Environment, University of Aberdeen; Dr J Edward Schofield, Department of Archaeology, University of Aberdeen confirmed an early human presence. Similar palynological predictions in the Western Isles have since been validated

by Mesolithic-age archaeological finds from Harris. These peripheral areas of Scotland are thus shown to have shared a human colonisation history with the rest of mainland Europe – they were not exceptional.

On a broader scale, Scottish pollen sites have been a major component in a study of modelled estimates of vegetation cover. It seems that the British Isles were significantly less wooded earlier in the Holocene than might be conventionally inferred, and landscapes were more open than other parts of Europe for which comparable data are available. This has implications for land cover-climate feedback mechanisms, in particular surface albedo and sources and sinks of greenhouse gases.

The North Atlantic region investigated from Aberdeen (boxed areas indicate general locations).

The North Atlantic region, within which we include much of the British Isles and especially the Northern and Western Isles of Scotland, represents a fine laboratory within which to examine issues of human-environment interaction over long timescales. This is for various reasons: the region is sensitive to climate change; its land surface contains many deposits which preserve subfossil evidence of past environmental history; and for key periods in Earth history, humans have occupied the territory and left an imprint of their activities upon either pristine or settled landscapes.

Over the last decade or so, research at Aberdeen, and involving co-workers within Scotland and further afield, has focused upon the activities of both prehistoric and historical human communities and their relationships with the land. Although much of this research has pollen analysis (palynology) at its core, it has often been fully integrated into a research design which embraces myriad approaches to human and environmental reconstruction. These approaches include analysis of insects, plant macrofossils, tree-rings, soils, volcanic ash layers, geomorphology, isotopes, climate change, radiocarbon dating, archaeology, and historical textual studies. Indeed, such is the range of proxies employed, that disciplinary boundaries seem somewhat irrelevant, and we view ourselves as geographers working to address archaeological and related environmental issues.

Our pollen-based environmental reconstructions have covered many parts of Scotland. An exemplar is our research from Shetland, associated with attempts to detect the first human presence there following the decline of the Lateglacial ice sheets. Palynological research close to Sumburgh Airport revealed human activity ascribable to Mesolithic huntergatherers, despite a lack of material archaeological evidence from the archipelago. Shell middens with radiocarbon dates overlapping the dates estimated from the pollen profile

The Norse in the North Atlantic provide a different opportunity. The process of landnám (Old Norse: ‘landtaking’) during the ninth and tenth centuries AD resulted in the stepwise colonisation of first the Faroe Islands, then Iceland and Greenland, and culminated in an ultimately failed attempt to establish a ‘Viking’ colony at L’Anse aux Meadows in North America around AD 1000. In essence, these areas may be viewed as natural laboratories for the study of environmental change, because landnám resulted in the introduction of a European-style (primarily pastoral) farming system into what were hitherto regarded as ‘pristine’ landscapes, unaffected up to that point by the impacts of people and their domesticated animals.

Conventional wisdom dictates that the Faroe Islands were colonised by the Norse at the onset of the ninth century AD. More remarkable is the long-standing debate surrounding a possible pre-Viking presence. Writing in the Frankish Court around AD 825, the monk Dicuil indicated that Irish ecclesiastics (papar) had reached the Faroes in advance of the Vikings, although until recently there was no firm archaeological evidence to substantiate this statement.

However, excavations beneath a longhouse at Á Sondum have revealed carbonised barley grains that have been radiocarbon dated to the fourth to sixth centuries AD. This discovery dictates that a re-evaluation of the nature, scale and timing of the human settlement of the Faroe Islands, and perhaps even the wider North Atlantic region, may now be required.

Sediment profile from Mosfell, southwest Iceland, featuring pre-landnám remains of birch trees embedded in organic peat below the landnám tephra from AD 871 (±2). Light coloured, inorganic sediments above the tephra signify soil erosion after clearance of woodland around the site. © D Zori

In Iceland, the timing of events is assisted by the presence of (often thick) layers of volcanic ash (tephra) within soil and sediment profiles.

Each ash has a unique chemical signature, allowing its origin to be

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traced to a specific eruption. Archaeological and palaeoenvironmental evidence for Norse settlement in Iceland is placed immediately above one such horizon, the socalled Landnám Ash, dated via ice cores to AD 871 ±2.

The presence of stumps and pollen grains of birch trees preserved in peat reveals that the pre-settlement landscape was much different to that of today. Landnám resulted in an immediate and substantial clearance of birch woodland to create hayfields, and this was often accompanied by marked soil erosion.

In many respects, the environmental impact of settlement on Greenland, beginning with the arrival of perhaps 14 ships led

by Erik the Red in AD 985, shares many commonalities with Iceland. One interesting aspect of recent investigations around the ruins of the Greenlandic farms has been the use of pollen and the remains of insects in tracing the introduction (accidental or otherwise) and the spread of ‘unwanted passengers’ as a consequence of the settlement process. For example, the appearance of pollen of sheep’s sorrel (Rumex acetosella) at or soon

after landnám is such a regular occurrence, that this can be widely used as a biological marker for the onset and spread of settlement. Equally exciting are demonstrations of irrigation systems within the pastorally-dominated farmlands of the newcomers. The demise of the Norse settlements in Greenland during the late 14th and early 15th centuries continues to attract debate, and pollen-based reconstructions of vegetation change continue to help refine the chronology of abandonment for individual farms as part of this process.

“The fossil archives are nature’s time capsules.”

The material presented here is just a small sample of a considerable volume of research. The fossil archives are nature’s time capsules, capable of being opened by techniques which are relatively inexpensive compared to big science, yet elegant in their power and comprehensiveness. As investigators working within the spheres of both environmental and cultural history, we continue to be excited by findings of relevance to both the past and the future activities of human communities.

Artificially-cut irrigation channel at Sandhavn, Greenland, lined with an impermeable clay-rich material. Charcoal within the basal lining produced a date of AD 1260-1390.

Á Sondum, Sandoy, Faroe Islands, is located beneath the grass-roofed building at the bottom right of the picture. © K Edwards

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Tides of change Dr Richard Bates, Department of Earth & Environmental Sciences, University of St Andrews

For most geographers, investigation of past sea level is aimed at understanding global climate and associated changes in (palaeo) environment, but for archaeologists there is the added dimension of trying to understand the relationship between environmental change and past human activity. The archaeological element includes mapping population distribution, interpreting activity in the landscape at any one time (eg, settlement, specialized sites such as butchery or resource procurement, hunting, fishing, gathering and later farming, burial, travel and transport) and, across a wider chronological framework, quantifying environmental change and trying to understand the impact on human behaviour.

“…around Scotland, key areas of these landscapes are today flooded and lost beneath the waves.”

At Last Glacial Maximum, the UK was connected to the continent by a landmass now submerged beneath the North Sea, and there is evidence that this landscape, coined Doggerland after the infamous shallow banks off the Norfolk coast, was made use of by highly mobile Late Glacial huntergatherers. Furthermore, it remained available to the Early Holocene population, even with the changes in relative sea level and improving climate that followed ice retreat.

The settlers of the Early Holocene, known today as Mesolithic, were hunter-gatherers who still practised a mobile lifestyle that made sophisticated use of the different ecological niches available to them. Along the coastal margins, they developed a highly specialized maritime culture, using newly developed seagoing technology in order to harvest marine and littoral resources; further inland, a Mesolithic footprint comprising assemblages of characteristic flaked stone tools has long been attested along river valleys such as the Tweed and the Dee, and is now recognised into high upland areas such as the Cairngorms.

The lifestyle of these early hunter-gatherers, however, left little impact on the environment, and this can pose a problem for archaeologists trying to find evidence of their presence in the palaeolandscapes, a problem made worse by the fact that around Scotland, key areas of these landscapes are today flooded and lost beneath the waves.

To help address the difficult problems of reconstructing the inundated landscape and locating archaeological sites, multidisciplinary research teams involving archaeologists, geographers, geologists,

geophysicists and computer modellers are necessary. One such team, comprising members of the Universities of St Andrews, Aberdeen, Dundee, Trinity Wales and Bradford, has been attempting to reconstruct lost landscapes across Doggerland, in key locations and at different time slices, and to identify specific areas of high archaeological potential within that greater landscape.

The approach follows two paths. Firstly, the palaeolandscape must be reconstructed; this usually involves a combination of geophysical survey followed by direct sampling to gain core material to analyse for specific palaeoenvironmental information.

Secondly, the inundation history of sea level rise must be measured.

For the largest areas, data has been re-processed from seismic surveys donated by the oil and gas industry to show large and complex river valley systems, lakes and estuaries leading into highly convoluted coastlines. Following the regional approach, it is possible to identify focus areas with greater potential for finding signatures of human activity. Here, surveys in greater detail include new seismic sub-bottom survey data together with multibeam sonar data for bathymetry in order to identify the submerged land surfaces.

In Scotland, a programme of research has targeted areas around the Orkney archipelago. These areas were chosen because of their great abundance of later archaeology, in particular from the period immediately post-dating the Mesolithic – the Neolithic, when agriculture was first developed in the islands. In Orkney, the record of this time is exceptionally complete and comprises settlements (such as Skara Brae), tombs and ritual sites, including the complex of ceremonial monuments at the Heart of Neolithic Orkney (the stone circles of Brodgar and Stenness, and the tomb of Maeshowe, all assigned World Heritage status). Today this complex is sited in a notable location along the thin isthmus of land that lies between the waters of the Lochs of Stenness and Harray. Our work has shown a very different picture at the time of occupation, however. The geophysics, palaeoenvironmental information and sea level record all indicate a true ‘landscape’ of gently undulating land, with restricted stretches of freshwater, and marshland that was gradually flooded long after the monuments were built.

What did the early farmers make of the inundation of this sacred landscape? How did they react to the changes in resource locations around the islands as the relative sea level reached present height? We will never know exactly, but only by recreating the lost lands can we start to consider their reactions – reactions that have a definite resonance to our own concerns today and into the future.

FURTHER READING Bicket A (2013), Audit of Current State of Knowledge of Submerged Palaeolandscapes and sites (Wessex Archaeology: English Heritage Project no 6231) Coles B (1998), Doggerland: a speculative survey (Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society, v64) Fraser SM, Knecht R, Milek K, Noble G, Ovenden S, Warren G, Wickham-Jones CR (2014), Upper Dee Tributaries Project (Discovery and Excavation in Scotland 2013)

Gaffney V, Fitch S, Smith D (2009), Europe’s Lost World, The Rediscovery of Doggerland (CBA Research Report 160) Wickham-Jones CR (2014), Prehistoric hunter-gatherer innovations: coastal adaptions. In Cummings V, Jordan P, Zvelebil M (eds), The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology and Anthropology of Hunter-gatherers (Oxford University Press) ScARF, Scottish Archaeological Research Framework (www. scottishheritagehub.com)

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The race to save Alaska’s melting cultural heritage Dr Kate Britton, Department of Archaeology, University of Aberdeen; Dr Rick Knecht, Department of Archaeology, University of Aberdeen; Dr Charlotta Hillerdal, Department of Archaeology, University of Aberdeen Nowhere are the effects of recent climate change more pronounced and destructive than in the Arctic. In the YukonKuskokwim Delta (Y-K Delta) of Western Alaska, an area almost three times the size of Scotland, the large native Yup’ik community are facing life-altering decisions in an uncertain future, as rising temperatures, melting permafrost and coastal erosion threaten traditional subsistence livelihoods, infrastructure and settlements.

The Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta is low-lying braided river Residents and Native system; topography, coupled with the destabilising Corporations are effects of permafrost melt, renders this region highly vulnerable to the effects of climate change, particularly struggling to keep coastal erosion and flooding. roads, airstrips, docks and houses from being lost to increasingly severe and unpredictable winter storms.

But it’s not only modern villages that are at risk; coastal erosion is now also rapidly exposing ancestral settlements.

In 2009, concerned The remains of the Nunalleq archaeological site cling at the loss of their precariously on the eroding edge of the Bering Sea. cultural heritage, the village corporation Qanirtuuq Inc and the Yup’ik Eskimo village of Quinhagak began a programme of archaeological survey, in partnership with University of Aberdeen, which resulted in the discovery of the Nunalleq (‘Old Village’) site. Nunalleq is now the focus of the first and only large-scale community archaeology project ever undertaken in this large region.

Spanning the Little Ice Age, this pre-contact Eskimo village (AD 1350-1700) has revealed house-floors yielding tens of thousands of in situ archaeological artefacts, including spectacular artwork and exceptionally well-preserved archaeological and ecological remains. Study of these artefacts and ecofacts, and even the architecture of the site, is providing valuable insights into late Holocene climate change in the region; the localised effects of recent global climatic excursions on the subsistence menu; and the responses the ancestors of today’s Yup’ik populations made in the face of these changes.

An AHRC grant in 2013 enabled new post-doctoral researchers to join the project, including specialists in ceramic technology, palaeobotany and palynology, and palaeoentomology. Although the research and post-excavation phase of the project has only just begun, important new bioarchaeology and environmental archaeology datasets are already emerging. Preliminary palaeoentomological studies have identified a number of key species for reconstructing living conditions and climate, and helped to inform future sampling strategies at this and other Arctic sites. Stable isotope analysis of animal remains and human hair have revealed the pre-contact diet, a generalist

subsistence strategy of mixed marine/terrestrial resources, with a focus on salmon. These methods will now be used to explore possible dietary changes throughout the occupation of the site, along with the analysis of lipid residues on ceramic artefacts. The amazing preservation conditions have allowed the Nunalleq project to contribute biological materials to broader-scale international studies, including a recent investigation into the populating of the New World Arctic using archaeo-genetics which has provided new insights into the relationships between modern Arctic populations and the various waves of human migrations into the most northerly areas of North America over the last 5,000 years.

“The ongoing loss of cultural heritage in this area is doubly tragic because the prehistory of the Yup’ik people is very poorly known.”

Central to our project is the use of the processes as well as the products of archaeological research, to better understand past climate change and empower local descent communities struggling with contemporary global warming. With preservation of cultural heritage a priority, the artefacts from Nunalleq provide avenues for imparting traditional knowledge to younger people raised in an increasingly westernised cultural environment. Archaeology provides a unique link to past knowledge and traditions at an uncertain time when these are badly needed. This is especially important amongst the Yup’ik, where respect for tradition and trust in ancestral wisdom runs deep.

In Quinhagak, we see archaeological research and interaction with archaeology and material culture as a catalyst, forging new directions in academic research while at the same time reconnecting villagers with the past. In recent years, along with the archaeological investigations, there has been an increased interest amongst the younger generations in Quinhagak to engage with traditional arts and crafts, and Yup’ik culture.

Since excavations began at Nunalleq, more than 10m of the site has been lost to the sea. While artefacts that would otherwise too have been lost are now being studied and conserved, Nunalleq is likely one of many similar sites. The ongoing loss of cultural heritage in this area is doubly tragic because the prehistory of the Yup’ik people is very poorly known. Despite the huge size of the Yup’ik homeland and its rich culture, daunting logistics have discouraged archaeological research. Even today our work would be impossible but for our partnership with Qanirtuuq Inc, the Yup’ik-owned entity that manages the village on behalf of its people. Village leaders and Elders decided that saving and, more importantly, reconnecting with their past was important to their future.

Wooden dolls like these were used in ceremony and religion, but were also sometimes made as children’s toys. The range of expressions, and abstract and realistic representations of human faces, likely attest to both different carvers and variable functions of these objects.

All images © Rick Knecht / Nunalleq Project

10 SPRING 2015

Norse Greenland Professor Andrew J Dugmore, Institute of Geography, University of Edinburgh

Archaeology is known to yield spectacular, prosaic, curious or just plain baffling details of the past.

Perhaps surprisingly, in modern archaeology there is a general lack of concern with the earliest, the largest, and the otherwise unique, as the academic drive is usually to tackle major questions about people in the past; to better understand issues such as the emergence, organisation, resilience, persistence, transformation and collapse of societies; or to better understand identity, migration and human-environmental interactions.

developments in seafaring, brought hundreds of settlers from Iceland to the south-western fiords of Greenland. Why they ventured into the dangerous, iceberg-strewn and stormy waters around Greenland has long been debated. It might have been a desperate quest for land to settle at the very edge of the known world.

It was, however, more likely to have been a market-driven economic strategy applied to the sub-Arctic, where the goal was to harness the riches represented by ivory, furs, hides and other Arctic exotica. To secure a suitable base within Greenland, the Norse established permanent settlements supported by pastoralism and fodder production, with introduced sheep, goats, cattle, horses and pigs, and a wellintegrated large-scale use of wild resources. A generation later these peoples ventured westwards to Newfoundland, but did not establish a lasting foothold in North America.

“Archaeology has both great synergy with geography and great potential relevance for today.”

Archaeology has both great synergy with geography and great potential relevance for today, because the past provides us with ‘completed experiments’ and these can help us to understand the consequences of particular choices and sets of circumstance. A long-term perspective allows us to track what happened next, often in quite chilling detail, enabling us to understand The collaborative research brought The Norse colonies in Greenland endured for well over four more about how events together under the umbrella of the hundred years, but why they came to an end some time unfold and the processes North Atlantic Biocultural Organisation in the mid-15th century AD has long been debated. It has which may drive them.

(NABO) nicely illustrates both been seen as a tragic morality tale; of an ill-conceived Given the rich archive contemporary trends at the interface European expansion into the sub-Arctic, boosted by a presented by the myriad of archaeology and geography and rather fanciful naming, buoyed along by anomalously warm of different completed the evolving story of the Scandinavian medieval climates, but founded on a misguided attempt experiments of every settlement of the North Atlantic. See to build a very remote farming economy across pockets of culture there has ever been, www.nabohome.org to find out more. marginally-viable agricultural land huddled between the even the partial records great inland ice sheet and the seasonally frozen sea. The that have survived enable idea of an increasingly isolated society, led to its doom by a us to explore processes of change that can resonate with complacent and oppressive elite who wilfully failed to respond the challenges faced by today’s societies. We are not Vikings to changing climate, creates or Neolithic farmers (and never will a poignant story. Sad, but not be), but understanding the choices fundamentally threatening, open to them, what they did and the because we may think we are so consequences of those decisions, helps much more knowledgeable, have us to understand processes of change many more options, and can and the implications of different respond and adapt and so avoid options. We are almost certainly their fate. moving into times of unprecedented global transformations that will affect In recent years however, a the whole planet. Geographical scales different, more challenging of change in the past may not have and disturbing narrative been as great as the global scales of has developed. We have change we will have to face, but we come to realise the scale have many cases to consider in the and effectiveness of Norse past where profound change rocked adaptations to Greenland, to The long, low grassy mound marks the site of turf-built Norse longhouse entire societies to their very core, Ø69. The Scandinavians first established hayfields here; some 500 years recognise their communal after they were abandoned, Inuit farmers have reclaimed them to grow affecting their entire world. Given the approaches, and to identify fodder for their sheep. challenge of an unknowable future, their long-term successes in we can, with the benefit of hindsight, usefully delve into the resource management and conservation. In Greenland, the archives of the past to understand how people met (or failed Norse first encountered mass spring migrations of seals. to meet) challenges such as climate change, economic stress They successfully switched from the winter cod fishing used and culture conflict, and for evidence of any warning signals in Iceland to a communal seal hunt, probably inspired by that change was imminent before it actually happened. other Norse communal marine mammal hunts of the Faroe The Norse settlement of Greenland, with its epic beginning and enigmatic ending, is a well-known but widely misunderstood story that illustrates key trends in modern archaeology, the questions it seeks to answer, its modern relevance, and its close interactions with geography.

Towards the end of the tenth century, the westward pulse of the Scandinavian Viking Age migrations, catalysed by

Islands and Northern Isles. Faunal evidence from across the Greenland settlements shows that they developed a well-integrated provisioning system that utilised a wide range of wild resources to supplement pastoral production.

Animal populations vulnerable to overhunting, such as the non-migratory harbour seals and caribou, were hunted, yet conserved, over multi-century timescales. A highly specialised

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exploitation of walrus was maintained Some Norse ruins are still very well-preserved over 500 years for more than after they were abandoned. four centuries, despite the epic distances involved from the settlements in the southwest of Greenland, in both the journeys to the hunting grounds some 600-900km to the north, and then onwards with Atlantic traders for the long eastwards journey across the Atlantic to the markets of Europe.

The comparatively benign climates that favoured the initial Norse settlement of Greenland deteriorated through the 13th century, with a series of abrupt cold spells triggered by volcanic activity that peaked in 1258-9 AD. In southwest Greenland the summer, vital for nurturing the livestock and growing fodder to keep them through the long sub-Arctic winter, would have been desperately short. Snow would have persisted around the farms into June and begun building up again in August. This would have had a devastating impact on the domestic animals which were crucial in underpinning the Norse subsistence system. But the colonies survived, and isotopic data on human remains and the faunal assemblages of middens shows how: the Norse responded in perhaps the only way they could, by moving deeper into the marine food web and hunting many more migrating seals. The adaptation was effective and the settlement endured, but as dependence on the annual seal migration grew, human populations dwindled and the farmed areas contracted.

By this time the Icelanders had developed trade in bulky commodities (woollen cloth and dried fish), but the Greenland economy, although intensified, remained specialised and unchanging. Ivory was still the vital product exported to Europe. Greenland cloth production remained limited and diverse, and did not follow the route of standardisation and mass production adopted across Iceland. And then the world changed. Plague devastated Norway; the old Royal Norwegian interest in trading with Greenland waned and was not replaced by any interest from the newly powerful Hanseatic merchants. Walrus ivory, once prized for art, ornaments, and most famously the Lewis Chessmen, fell out of fashion or was replaced by superior African elephant ivory. Greenland did not produce the wool and dried fish they desired.

Climate became ever more unfavourable, further impacting pastoral farming and compromising any efforts to generate wool surplus for export.

With the cold came an increasing reliance on marine mammals, and with the storminess came increasing risks on the long journey to the distant walrus hunting grounds. Despite this, the Norse identified a seemingly elegant solution to the challenges they faced, tackled them as an interdependent community, and stuck to a formula that had seen them through difficult times in the past. We do not know how the Norse handled culture contact with the incoming Thule Inuit, but we do know that Thule lifestyles were not adopted by the Norse, as perhaps the solutions that had worked through

the 13th and 14th centuries were too ingrained to change.

The last recorded contact with Norse Greenlanders was in the early 15th century, though archaeological data shows that the Surveying a Norse bathhouse. community endured for several decades more. Ultimately, it is likely that the vulnerabilities of their dwindling population to changing climate, to the economic transformations sweeping their distant markets, and to the challenges of culture contact proved too great. Despite, or perhaps because At the site of the old Bishopric at Gardar, only the most massive stones of their communal have been left behind by the later builders of the modern village. integration and successful prior Arctic adaptations, their settlement seems to have been too specialised, too small and too remote to be able to cope with the conjunctures of the 15th century. Many questions are still unresolved, but worth pursuing, as a better understanding of the fate of Norse Greenland holds important lessons for us today as we grapple on a far larger scale with similar problems of unprecedented climate changes, economic transformations and migration.

A reconstruction of the small Norse church at BrattahlĂ­Ă°Â - the modern Greenland settlement of Qassiarsuk.

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Radiocarbon revolutions and reservoirs Dr Philippa Ascough, Scottish Universities Environmental Research Centre

Here, ancient carbon can dilute the amount of radiocarbon in the Archaeological research is ruled by the water if it contains dissolved carbonates (eg, limestone geology), concept of time. Knowing the timing of or stored terrestrial carbon (eg, peats, or glacier meltwater). events lets us determine cause from effect, In regions such as Iceland, there is another culprit: geothermal and investigate how human societies have activity. The conventionally accepted age for the settlement grown, interacted, evolved, and decayed of Iceland is AD 871 ±2, marked by the landnám volcanic ash over the vast span of prehistory. Yet telling layer. Yet an extensive archaeological research programme the time in archaeology is not straightforward; we need to put in the north of Iceland revealed much earlier dates of up to samples of unknown age on a calendar timescale. Radiocarbon c2000 BC on human and pig bones.

(14C) dating provides a key to this problem.

The reason was that high geothermal Devised in the 1940s by Willard ‘Wild temperatures released ancient carbon Bill’ Libby, the method uses the fact that to the freshwater systems from which living material contains a tiny quantity archaeological communities had of radiocarbon, a radioactive carbon obtained fish, waterfowl and their isotope. Radiocarbon levels are constantly eggs, giving them a very old ‘apparent’ topped up during life, but after death radiocarbon age. This was dramatically they start to decay away. This gives us a demonstrated by measuring living radiocarbon ‘stopwatch’; by measuring the modern fish from a lake in the region, amount of radiocarbon left in a sample, which were found to have ‘apparent’ we can calculate its radiocarbon age. radiocarbon ages of c5,000 years!

The method was literally a revolution in Studying radiocarbon dynamics in archaeological understanding when it was Mývatn lake in north Iceland, where ancient carbon flows in to this environment has enabled us not introduced. Since then there have been the water via geothermal activity. only to accurately date some of the further ‘revolutions’; the use of intricate earliest inland settlements in Iceland, but also to unravel diet calibration curves to convert radiocarbon ages to calendar dates, and subsistence patterns of settlers in this pristine landscape, and the use of Accelerator Mass Spectrometry, opening the door particularly the extent to which they relied upon wild resources to ever-decreasing sample sizes (eg, individual amino acids from for survival. cooking residues on pottery).

“...a revolution in archaeological understanding...”

One key issue in archaeological research is that of radiocarbon ‘reservoir effects’. Carbon atoms circulate quickly in the atmosphere and terrestrial biosphere, yet this is not the case for other carbon reservoirs, particularly the oceans, where a carbon atom may spend thousands of years before being incorporated into the samples we analyse. During this time, radioactive decay occurs, meaning that marine samples appear ‘older’ in radiocarbon years than terrestrial samples, even when the two are of the same actual calendar age. This is a problem for archaeological research in regions like Scotland. Here, a wealth of coastal settlements and extensive use of marine resources mean that material for dating is often marine; shells, fishbone, or even terrestrial animals fed on marine resources such as seaweed. The solution is to compare radiocarbon dates of marine and terrestrial material of the same actual calendar age.

The difference between the two gives us a correction factor to bring marine material into line with its terrestrial counterpart.

Middens, or prehistoric rubbish dumps, come in handy here, as ancient daily dumps of material can be identified that contain exactly the type of samples needed. An extensive programme of these measurements has revealed that the radiocarbon content of Scottish coastal waters has fluctuated by over 200 radiocarbon years over the past 8,000 years. This knowledge is crucial in properly calibrating radiocarbon dates on marine samples from this fascinating zone of North Atlantic settlement, but has also highlighted shifts in ocean and climate, providing a tool to investigate these shifts through time, and even to gain an insight into how they may have impacted archaeological communities.

Reservoir effects can also complicate dating in freshwater systems (rivers and lakes).

The application of radiocarbon in archaeological research now firmly intersects with the palaeoenvironmental and palaeoecological sciences, particularly the cycling of carbon within terrestrial, oceanic and freshwater systems, and the exploitation of these systems by human communities. As the technological envelope of radiocarbon dating is continually pushed, the resolution to which we can interrogate the past is constantly improving. In modern archaeology, the science of radiocarbon dating has a bright future as both a tracer and a timekeeper in the Earth system.

Shell midden on the Western Isles of Scotland: heavy prehistoric use of marine resources. © Dr Mike Church, Durham University

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Tree-rings, climate and archaeology in Scotland Dr Rob Wilson, Department of Earth & Environmental Sciences, University of St Andrews; Dr Coralie Mills, Department of Earth & Environmental Sciences, University of St Andrews; Miloš Rydval, Department of Earth & Environmental Sciences, University of St Andrews

Dendrochronology is the science of dating growth rings in trees and gleaning environmental information from them.

Understanding how different environmental processes influence tree growth allows the discipline of dendrochronology to be expanded to a myriad of sub-fields, allowing the assessment of current and past changes in climate, woodland dynamics and a variety of ecological and environmental issues.

Finally, the dating of historic buildings constructed using pine in Scotland had also not been possible until recently. The expansion of the pine chronology network in time and space (including sites in Scandinavia), alongside the development of new analytical techniques, is now changing this situation. As an example, we can now date a number of pine cruck frame cottages across the Highlands, with ages clustering in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Many timbers from other historic buildings and archaeological sites are in the process of being sampled and analysed, with anticipated dates in the late medieval period.

Besides providing precise dates for our built heritage, their analysis, along with the dating of the loch sediment sub-fossil material, will also contribute to our understanding of past woodland use and management.

Black dots = Network of sampled living tree pine sites.

“Tree-ring dating has had a profound impact on the archaeological sciences.”

Tree-ring dating has had a profound impact on the archaeological sciences, not only by direct dating of wood from buildings and archaeological material, but also through the calibration of the radiocarbon curve. By sampling many living trees and extending datasets back in time using preserved wood of the same species (samples from historical or archaeological and sub-fossil sources), long continuous tree-ring chronologies, greater than 4,000 years in length, have been developed for several locations around the planet, including Ireland, Scandinavia, central Europe and the Alps, western US, Tasmania and Chile.

In Scotland, only around 1% of semi-natural woodland (deciduous and coniferous) remains today, compared to the theoretical maximum extent during the early/mid Holocene climatic optimum around 7,000-8,000 years ago. No current woodland stand is truly natural, and all semi-natural woodlands are in a state of recovery from significant past management and exploitation. Focusing on Scots pine, it is evident that the Caledonian pine forest has been in decline since 5,000-7,000 years ago. This is due to both natural processes and human clearance, with overall woodland extent hitting an all-time low in the early 19th century. Such broad-scale observations have been gleaned mainly from pollen records, but dendrochronological studies since the early 1970s have sought to add detail. The radiocarbon (rather than tree-ring) dating of preserved sub-fossil pine material found in peat bogs from areas such as Rannoch Moor, the Cairngorms, Glen Affric and the Flow Country has been in general agreement with the pollen record. However, owing to the irregular growth forms of so-called bog pines, no dendrochronological dating of such samples was possible – until recently.

Dendrochronology using pine in Scotland is currently undergoing a renaissance. This is in large part due to activities co-ordinated by the tree-ring laboratory at the University of St Andrews over the last ten years with colleagues from AOC Archaeology and the Universities of Swansea and Stockholm. We have developed living tree chronologies from almost all surviving pine woodlands around Scotland. Most trees started growing in the 18th and 19th centuries, but a few rare sites have living trees that germinated in the 16th and 15th centuries. Utilising preserved pine material from loch sediments, we have been able to extend living chronologies in the northern Cairngorms and Glen Affric.

The current pine chronology from the northern Cairngorms is now continuous back to AD 1154, with several radiocarbon dated ‘floating’ chronologies showing potential for a continuous 2,000year record. In fact, preserved pine material has been found from lochs in Rothiemurchus representing most periods over the last 8,000 years. These new extended tree-ring chronologies have allowed the development of a well-calibrated climate reconstruction of past summer temperatures for Scotland back to AD 1200, which clearly shows periods substantially cooler than present coinciding with known periods of famine and societal disruption (eg, the late 17th century).

This is an exciting time for Scottish dendrochronology and we thankfully acknowledge support from the Carnegie Trust, Leverhulme Trust, and the Natural Environment Research Council. See www.st-andrews. ac.uk/~rjsw/ ScottishPine for more information about the Scottish Pine Project.

Red dots = Locations where loch sub-fossil samples have been taken.

Comrie Woods. © RSGS / M Robinson

14 SPRING 2015

Scotland’s Finest Landscapes: The Collector’s Edition summit before dawn. “Light turns a landscape from ordinary, to extraordinary. The idea that I could arrange the elements of a landscape within the viewfinder of my camera to anticipate the convergence of light and land excited me from the start.

The results can transcend the landscape and transport the viewer to another state of mind.”

His first significant shot taken from a Scottish mountain summit was on a cold day in November 1990, with his father Hugh. It was of the peaks of Glencoe as the sun set over Ben Starav at the head of Loch Etive, and this image is the one Colin considers to be his ‘signature’. “It really awakened me to the potential of shooting at elevation at dusk and dawn.”

Colin Prior is one of the finest landscape photographers, matching an eye for natural beauty with the instincts of a mountaineer, capturing the most magical qualities of a landscape, and communicating something beyond words.

“I’m motivated to create imagery that will inspire people, because I believe if I inspire people, I can take them on a journey,” he says.

From his early days, Colin has been intrigued by the way light plays at dusk and dawn, and he goes to great lengths to capture this; for example, climbing through the night with the light of a head torch, carrying a 23.5kg pack, to be at the

Colin often climbs alone, but many times he is accompanied by his father, to whom he dedicates this collection of his work.

Scotland’s Finest Landscapes is an edition of 200 of the very best of Colin’s Scottish landscape panoramas, arranged by region, and complemented by maps that pinpoint the locations of every shot, insights into Colin’s methods, personal stories and anecdotes, and interviews with conservationists.

It is a large landscape-format cloth-covered hardback in a clamshell box, an ideal present for armchair travellers and photographers, and available from leading independent bookshops, specialist outdoor shops, and direct from www. colinprior.co.uk for only £75.00.

Top right - Traigh Scarasta, Sound of Taransay, Isle of Harris, Western Isles.

Middle right - River North Esk, Glen Esk, Angus. Below - Marsco and Garbh-bheinn, Red Cuillin, from Blaven, Skye, Highland.

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Scotland’s archaeological heritage Diana Murray, Joint Chief Executive, RCAHMS

“…millions of photographs, maps, drawings and documents about archaeological sites, buildings and landscapes…”

For over 100 years the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland (RCAHMS) has been surveying and recording the nation’s heritage.

Its archaeological programme includes specialist surveys covering photography, measured drawings, aerial photography, airborne laser scanning, and 3D models.

The modern survey programme feeds directly into the internationally significant RCAHMS archive which includes millions of photographs, maps, drawings and documents about archaeological sites, buildings and landscapes, from prehistory to the present day. Some of the oldest material comes from the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland Collection, with unparalleled records by antiquarians, photographers and excavators.

We make these records available to the public through our Search Room, through publications and exhibitions, and through our continually developing online resources. Amongst these resources, our Canmore database gives access to images and information on over 300,000 sites across Scotland, while the online mapping service PastMap provides a single gateway into every aspect of the historic environment in Scotland, from archaeology and historic buildings, to industrial heritage and designed landscapes.

Surveys and Research RCAHMS is working on a range of inspiring projects which seek to reveal more about Scotland’s archaeology to the wider public and professionals alike.

The results of extensive fieldwork in the Uists with Comhairle nan Eilean Siar (Western Isles Council) have just been published, which discovered a Neolithic chambered cairn and several later-Iron Age houses. A further project with Forestry

James Hepher, Adam Welfare and Ian Parker of RCAHMS, on Hirta, St Kilda. © RCAHMS

Commission Scotland cast new light on the Iron Age fort on the summit of Craig Phadrig, overlooking Inverness. RCAHMS is also working with universities across the UK on a series of PhDs funded by the Arts & Humanities Research Council, including research on Early Castles and into Post-medieval Settlements.

And we look forward to publishing a new book on our research into the archaeological sites on St Kilda later this year.

Meanwhile, the Discovering the Clyde programme will engage with local community groups, academic institutions and interested individuals to combine research and fieldwork to document how people have interacted with the River Clyde through time. Part of this includes the Connected with the Clyde project, which is currently investigating heritage sites and monuments directly connected with the river, and enhancing online data to improve its capacity for further professional research.

Community Engagement Working with communities forms an integral part of our active education and outreach programme. As well as participating in annual events such as Scottish Archaeology Month, Doors Open Day, Highland Archaeology Fortnight, and Perth and Kinross Archaeology Month, this year is Dig It! 2015, a year-long celebration of Scottish archaeology. A wide variety of events, from the Orkney Islands to the Scottish Borders, will give young people and adults the chance to discover and tell Scotland’s stories through archaeology.

With a range of national partners, we will also be participating in the European Association of Archaeologists Conference taking place at the University of Glasgow in September. Held for the first time in Scotland, this will be an excellent opportunity to share the country’s rich, diverse and unique cultural heritage with an international audience.

This year the Scotland’s Urban Past project, supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund, will work with communities across the nation to explore the rich architectural, social and personal histories of Scotland’s towns and cities. And the Scottish Heritage Angel Awards will launch later this year, supported by the Andrew Lloyd Webber Foundation, to celebrate the contribution of volunteers across Scotland who work to protect, understand and value the historic environment.

Historic Environment Scotland This is an exciting year: in October, Historic Environment Scotland (HES) will be formally established, bringing together RCAHMS and Historic Scotland to form a new lead public body for Scotland’s historic environment.

Using the unique skills, experience, knowledge and expertise of staff, HES will help deliver Scotland’s first ever Historic Environment Strategy – Our Place in Time. This will produce a resilient, sustainable and effective heritage organisation, streamlining and improving current functions to deliver an enhanced service for the historic environment now and in years to come.

General view from the north of Village Bay, Hirta, St Kilda, with a cleit in the foreground, the Ministry of Defence establishment, the radar station on Mullach Sgar, and Dun beyond. © RCAHMS

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Aerial survey and photographs in archaeology Dave Cowley, Aerial Survey Projects Manager, RCAHMS

The bird’s-eye view, whether obtained from aerial imagery or by an airborne observer, has made a fundamental contribution to archaeology over the last 100 years, and for some landscapes and types of remains the aerial perspective is the main basis for understanding the past. And as the original form of remote sensing it continues to do so, even as new approaches to recording the landscape, such as Airborne Laser Scanning and hyper-spectral imaging, emerge.

Finding stuff and recording the landscape Knowing where the material remains of the past are, and their character, is a keystone of archaeological investigation and heritage management. In some landscapes, aerial reconnaissance has generated most of the known distributions of past settlement and land use patterns, especially in lowland areas where centuries of agriculture have progressively levelled and buried the remains of earlier activities such as digging ditches around settlements or laying out field systems. Here, prospection during summer months, most effective in dry years and over well-drained soils when differential crop development (‘cropmarks’) can reveal the presence of features such as ditches under the plough soil, has revolutionised knowledge of past landscapes.

‘Cropmark’ reconnaissance is a cumulative process, with the quality and extent of returns very dependent on weather, but in many areas of the UK, for example, routinely over 75% of known site distributions have been recorded in this way. The same is true for ongoing surveys along the heavily indented western seaboard of Scotland, where the majority of intertidal features such as fish traps, kelp grids and slipways have been put on record through aerial reconnaissance.

where time-lapsed series are available. Serendipitously, these images may record sites and monuments that have since been destroyed and ‘reconnaissance’ in the archives routinely proves its worth. Indeed, the many tens of millions of images in national and international archives (eg, ncap. org.uk) and online are a barely explored gold mine for archaeology and landscape studies. Beyond these general applications, such images may be privileged sources, for example in the emerging field of conflict archaeology where wartime aerial photographs provide unique information and perspectives.

Putting it all together While putting ‘dots on maps’ is an important foundation for knowledge, it is the process of interpretative mapping that builds understanding of patterns and processes. This Mapping of the Roman fort, temporary camps and other features is when often at Castledykes near Lanark combines cropmarked evidence disarticulated and collected over many decades. © Crown copyright and database fragmentary right 2015. All rights reserved. OS Licence No 100020548. bits of evidence, collected piecemeal over many years, are compiled and broader patterns emerge. Mapping ensures that features are in the right place and at a common scale, underpinning studies of settlement and land use patterns across space and through time. The use of Geographical Information Systems (GIS) to articulate digital data, both imagery and line work, is now routine, facilitating straightforward data analysis and management.

“These historic views can provide rich and textured information not available on maps”

Putting it in context

Aerial reconnaissance routinely makes major contributions to knowledge. The discovery of a previously unknown cursus monument visible as cropmarking in southeast Scotland on 8 July 2013 is a significant addition to the corpus of these Neolithic enclosures. © RCAHMS (Aerial Photography Collection). Licensor www.rcahms.gov.uk

Recovering lost landscapes Extensive aerial photographic coverage is fairly routinely available dating back to the 1940s, and this ‘archival’ imagery (including satellite) affords views of landscapes that have often been comprehensively altered. Mechanisation of agriculture, afforestation, urban sprawl and construction of infrastructure have all destroyed or obscured large areas of our landmass, and these historic views can provide rich and textured information not available on maps. This perspective has an enormous importance in informing historic landscape characterisation and other broad-brush mapping, in particular

Aerial photographs have played an important role in the development of Landscape Archaeology, providing multiscaled views of landscapes and sites and making often unique contributions to site discovery and documentation.

At the heart of a variety of approaches to landscape archaeology is a holistic philosophy, and this is where the aerial contribution works best, sometimes providing unique insights, or complementing data such as Airborne Laser Scanning (or LiDAR) and multi- and hyperspectral imaging.

This is also a world where development in software (so-called Structure-from-Motion, or soft-bench photogrammetry) is now allowing routine extraction of 3D data from aerial images that have otherwise been used as 2D wallpaper.

Aerial photography demonstrated its utility for archaeology in the 19th century, and its contribution grew during the 20th century. Now, in the 21st century the contribution of the aerial perspective is undiminished, still a very costeffective means of reconnaissance, still a source of unique information, and still a fascinating medium from which to study our surroundings.

18 SPRING 2015

Reconstructing late Neolithic cultural landscapes in Argyll Dr Richard Tipping, Biological and Environmental Sciences, University of Stirling; Dr Aaron Watson, Monumental Creative Heritage Interpretation; Dr Andrew Jones, Department of Archaeology, University of Southampton Kilmartin has the most extraordinary assemblage of Neolithic and Bronze Age archaeological sites in mainland Scotland.

The first image is of a small valley, that of the River Add in Argyll, just before it flows into the Kilmartin Glen and out to sea. The second image is from the same hillside some 4,400 years ago.

The reconstruction of prehistoric landscapes from scientific techniques is rarely so spatially precise as to be recreated in this way, but such was the need in trying to understand how people in the late Neolithic regarded, lived alongside, and experienced the rock art – beautiful cup-&-ring carvings – being made on isolated rock knolls on the valley floor, the lower-right of the second image. No-one has successfully defined the landscape context of this art, or addressed questions about who the art was for. Was it hidden, for example, or shared by all?

To begin to answer such questions in an Arts & Humanities Research Council grant to Andrew Jones and Richard Tipping, we applied quite standard scientific techniques but very intensively across only a few square kilometres of ground.

So what are you looking at? First, pollen analysis was used to understand the plant communities, but pollen analysis with a twist. We sought two types of pollen site: one that would receive pollen from the hills in general, and a second that would give us the local, fine detail. The uplands above the valley floor were wooded, an oakhazel-birch forest that was barely altered by people from its natural state. There is a sense of herders passing lightly through the wood, but no more. The valley floor and sides were, on the other hand, given over entirely to mixed farming. The late Neolithic (some might say the Copper Age) was the first time that agriculture of this scale and orderliness appeared in the valley.

The pollen site that described this farmed landscape is very small: you can almost step over it. It’s marked in the second image in the middle-right by alder and willow bushes around an old river channel.

The pollen site is in amongst the fields and the meadow. The valley floor was grazed, more likely by cattle than by sheep from the herb assemblage (Aaron, who made the second image, made them the distinctive Chillingham white cattle), sufficient to open up bare, trampled ground. You can’t quite see the River Add. There

were many abandoned channels, and radiocarbon dating the peat that filled them upon abandonment allowed us to position the active channel tucked in against the valley side; today it has shifted to the opposite side of the valley. The river was shallow and was easily fordable, allowing the procession of people to the rock art.

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Society of Antiquaries of Scotland Vina Oberlander At around 2400 BC the river was beginning to flood more frequently: overbank sands are recorded in the peat of the abandoned channel on the valley floor. This may have been a response to changing climate, but may also have been because the river began to receive lots of sediment from the valley sides. The lower slopes in the valley are glacio-fluvial terraces, level on their formation but by the late Neolithic much degraded. In the second image these surfaces have classic round-houses on them.

These are a conceit. We didn’t find these, one reason being, perhaps, that traces of them were lost by soil erosion. We recorded a metre or two of colluvial sediment in three transects of boreholes running up this slope, inter-bedded between in situ peat, which we could radiocarbon date. This is probably the best long-term record of soil erosion in Scotland, and the late Neolithic is one period of major erosion in the valley. We knew from our pollen analyses that farmers were growing wheat and probably barley, but we don’t know where the fields were. We placed them on this slope, first because the valley floor was frequently flooded at this time, and second because we had to explain the amount of soil erosion. However, move to the right of the last round-houses and you’ll see deep gullies being ripped into an alluvial fan, itself inter-bedded with peat, which originates above the lower slope. Maybe increasing rainfall was starting to aggravate what damage farmers made.

“There is a sense of herders passing lightly through the wood, but no more.”

So: all this to understand that rock art here in the Add Valley was made in full view of farming communities who walked past it every day. The acts of carving may have been special occasions, but the art belonged to everyone.

FURTHER READING Jones AM, Freedman D, O’Connor B, Lamdin-Whymark H, Tipping R, Watson A (2011), An Animate Landscape: Rock Art and the Prehistory of Kilmartin, Argyll, Scotland (Macclesfield: Windgather Press)

Founded in 1780 to study the antiquities and history of Scotland, the Society has provided a forum for debate, discussion and sharing of knowledge. Many of the key objects in the National Museums Scotland were collected by our members (called Fellows) during the 18th and 19th centuries. Today, the Society continues to be an important player in Scotland’s heritage sector.

The Society: • promotes lectures by leading researchers; • publishes current research and books covering all periods of Scotland’s history; • supports archaeological and historical research through grants and prizes; • responds to Government and other consultations with relevance to the historic environment of Scotland; • presents regional and international conferences; • delivers initiatives like Dig It! 2015 (see below), and ScARF (Scottish Archaeological Research Framework), a collaboration bringing together experts to provide an overview of research in Scotland.

Our Fellows (nearly 3,000 worldwide) are a diverse group of people with one common passion – the past. They might be emerging researchers, established academics, heritage experts, or talented lay people with a deep interest in Scotland’s history. See www.socantscot.org for more information.

Dig It! 2015 Julianne McGraw Dig It! 2015, the yearlong celebration of Scottish archaeology, is encouraging everyone to discover Scotland’s stories! Over a hundred events are available on the website, ranging from Iron Age cooking and Land Rover safaris Traditional archaeology is an important part of the Dig It! to Pictish lectures 2015 programme, with lots of opportunities to get involved. and international © Stuart Vance conferences. These events are happening throughout Scotland and most are free or inexpensive, and open to everyone. Hundreds more will be added throughout the year, so keep checking back in!

Dig It! 2015 have also been busy promoting collaboration across and beyond the sector, leading to some very exciting projects. A partnership with Immersive Minds, for example, will result in the creation of an archaeology-packed, digital Scotland within the popular game of Minecraft. An upcoming art competition, in partnership with Forestry Commission Scotland, will invite members of the public, and professionals, to help us visualise Scotland’s stunning archaeology.

Visit our website or sign up for our e-newsletter (www.digit2015.com/contact-us) which includes upcoming events, volunteer opportunities, exclusive project news and more!

20 SPRING 2015

Phylogeography Professor Keith Dobney, Department of Archaeology, University of Aberdeen

“…a unique and extremely rapid evolutionary process that we are still trying to understand.”

The fossil record allows us to ask many questions about organisms in the past; what they looked like, and how they evolved, adapted and changed through deep geological time. The remains of animals excavated from archaeological sites provide direct insights of more recent timescales, and specifically allow us to explore the increasingly complex interactions of animals with humans.

One of the most important bio-cultural transitions of the last 10,000 years was the shift from hunting and gathering to farming, which saw the domestication of economically important plants (eg, wheat, barley, rice) and animals (eg, sheep, goat, cattle, pig). In addition, new ecological niches were created which, in turn, attracted other organisms (eg, small mammals) to human settlements and fields, some of which became some of our most important pests and disease vectors.

telling us that modern wild boar and domestic pigs from ISEA and the Pacific share a specific mtDNA signature that had its origin somewhere on continental mainland East Asia.

This pattern clearly points to a human-mediated dispersal event involving wild boar or, more likely, domestic pigs from continental East Asia into ISEA and the Pacific.

Human colonisation of the Pacific involved the eastward spread from mainland East Asia of a series of Austronesianspeaking maritime cultures, one of the most important (and enigmatic) being that of the Lapita cultural complex. Settling for the first time the numerous remote island archipelagos

The impact of all this on human society was profound, major consequences being rapid population growth, an explosion of cultural diversity, and significant changes in human health. The domestication process itself also radically changed the animals involved, creating a unique and extremely rapid evolutionary process that we are still trying to understand.

Those animals that became the mainstay of human subsistence societies (or indeed the principal pests of, for example, stored grain) dispersed around the globe with new farming cultures. With new Map of wild boar mtDNA showing phylogeographic structure. scientific techniques, we can explore the process of domestication and track the spread of early of west (and later east) Polynesia, these and later ancestors farming communities through space and time. Applying of today’s Polynesians carried their domesticated and phylogeographic principles (linking patterns in the data with commensal plants and animals with them in boats. Theories place and time) to genetic information (for example) has about their mainland continental origins and subsequent provided novel insights into where, and how many times, voyaging routes into the Pacific have largely been dominated certain wild animals were domesticated, as well as allowing by modern linguistic and rather sparse archaeological us to track the spread of early farmers across the globe. evidence, all of which have been used to argue for an origin in Our own research on extant Eurasian wild boar (Sus scrofa) Taiwan some 6,500 years ago. in 2005 revealed a very clear phlyogeographic structure in Our genetic study of both modern and archaeological their mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), with a clear westward remains of one of the principal domestic animals carried by cline observable from Island South East Asia (ISEA) to early voyagers (the pig) into the Pacific revealed the presence western Europe. These data support the species’ ‘origin’ in of a specific mainland Eurasian wild boar mtDNA lineage, ISEA and subsequent natural dispersal westward across the likely from Thailand, Vietnam or South West China. This old world, which the sparse fossil record suggests is during lineage was incorporated into domestic pig herds in South the middle Pleistocene (1,000,000-500,000 years ago).

East Asia during the Neolithic, then dispersed south and then However, assigning modern-day domestic pig mtDNA lineages east with early farming cultures through the Malay peninsula, to the framework shows multiple matches with wild boar the Indonesian island chain (crossing the great biogeographic populations (at least five) across the Old World, from the Far divide known as the Wallace line), on into Wallacea, New East to Europe. This tells us that geographically disparate, Guinea and then the western Pacific. and discrete, wild boar populations contributed mtDNA to modern domestic pigs at some point in the past, something Contradicting the long-held ‘out-of-Taiwan’ model, these that has been confirmed through recent analyses of ancient data provide evidence that one of the most important DNA from pig remains from archaeological sites. domestic animals of past and present Pacific cultures that travelled into the Pacific with the human colonisers had a One particular mtDNA clade (circled and arrowed on the completely different origin and dispersal trajectory than diagram), however, shows a clear mismatch between its traditionally thought. geographic location and its position on the phylogenetic tree,

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Palaeoentomology Dr Eva Panagiotakopulu, Institute of Geography, University of Edinburgh

Fossil insect research can provide detailed information about environmental change and human impact. In the case of the eastern Mediterranean, where there is appropriate preservation, the insects can give fascinating images of past life, including landscape clearance, the spread of agriculture, origins of insect-borne diseases, and even forensic information for catastrophic events.

One of the best examples for the latter comes from the settlement of Akrotiri, colloquially the Pompeii of the Aegean world, on the island of Santorini, where the Plinian volcanic eruption which destroyed the site in the early 17th century BC has also preserved its ruins under the tephra, including twostorey buildings, wall paintings, and a range of organic remains.

The insect material from the site allows an understanding of the development of the fauna from the beginning to the end of the settlement, and the biogeographic information provided showcases the dynamic nature of interconnections in the eastern Mediterranean during the Late Bronze Age.

Some interesting snapshots of past life were another outcome of the insect research. The faunas from the house of Akhenaten’s Master of Horses, Ranefer, are typically urban, with flies and other pests, and provide details about an affluent part of the city. They illustrate typically urban environments, with little evidence for plants or trees and where piles of garbage, including spoilt grain and associated insect faunas, did not seem to be out of place. In terms of information about disease from these sites, there is evidence for rich relevant faunas and early records of several insects which may have played a role in the spread of infectious disease; the early urban centres around the Nile may provide the key for the origins of insect-borne diseases such as bubonic plague.

“Insects can give fascinating images of past life.“

Further away from the Nile, the Workmen’s Village, according to the insect remains, relied on commodities brought from the main city, and the faunas include a range of pests of stored products similar to Amarna, but also indicate rural environments. Two thousand years later, during the Byzantine period, insect remains from the monastery at Kom el Nana, built over part of the city at Amarna, give information for a changing environment; the landscape included fruit trees and water around the monastery. The use of irrigation by the monks, either by drawing water from a well or by channels from the Nile, is indicated by the palaeoecological evidence.

The information acquired from fossil insects about past climate and environments, and the extent of changes in biodiversity over the longer time-frame, are critical for understanding the past and also provide a window into what lies ahead. Sadly in several parts of the eastern Mediterranean, modern agriculture, irrigation and changes in water level are threatening both natural deposits and archaeological sites, and with them our chance to obtain these unique records.

A view of the West House at Akrotiri, excavated by C Doumas.

Fossil insects may also give forensic insights in terms of reconstructing unique details about the last moments of the site. Based on the information from the charred bean weevils which were recovered from the large storage jars of the West House in large numbers infesting beans, we were able to assign a season for the volcanic eruption which destroyed the settlement. The bean weevils are exclusively field pests, which have only one annual cycle and do not reproduce in the storeroom. The death assemblage in question consists of larvae, pupae and adults, and it pointed to a single event, a direct result of the eruption. Considering the life cycle of both the bean weevils and the cultivated peas, the eruption had probably taken place some time in June to early July.

Further afield, the desiccating environment of the Egyptian desert also leads to excellent preservation of organic material, fossil insects included. Palaeoenvironmental work on the 14th century BC New Kingdom site of Tell el Amarna, which was Akhenaten’s and Tutankhamun’s capital during their short reign, and the contemporary Workmen’s Village, where the artisans for the Pharaohs’ tombs lived, has provided new insights into both environmental change and human impact in the area.

Aggradation of the Nile has significantly reduced the step between the entrenched floodplain and the edge of the city, yet results from fossil insect research show that the areas of Amarna next to the Nile were green as opposed to desert.

Charred bean weevil elytra from the West House at Akrotiri.

Insect pest assemblages from Amarna.

Excavations of Ranefer’s house at Amarna, directed by Barry Kemp.

22 SPRING 2015

Easter Island Dr Paul G Bahn

The most remote permanently inhabited place in the world, the whole of this small island is an archaeological site.

A source of constant mystery and wonder, it lies in the middle of the South Pacific, to the west of Chile (to which it belongs).

The ‘rongorongo’ writing system survives only on 25 wooden tablets scattered around the world’s museums. Debate still rages as to whether the islanders developed it themselves, or whether it was inspired by their encounter with European writing in the 18th century.

Easter Island received its name from the Dutch commander, Jakob Roggeveen, who encountered the island on Easter Sunday, 5 April 1722. It is now often called Rapa Nui (big Rapa), because 19th-century Tahitian sailors thought it looked like a large version of the island of Rapa. It was first colonised by people from East Polynesia (perhaps Mangareva), probably in the early centuries AD. They proceeded to produce the most amazing Stone Age culture the world has ever known, with hundreds of massive platforms, up to a thousand huge statues, a wealth of rock art, and its own writing system.

When the Polynesian colonists reached the island it was covered with a dense forest, primarily of huge palm trees, and was also immensely rich in birdlife. Over the centuries, like Polynesian settlers elsewhere, they totally modified their environment, by wiping out the birds (apart from a few migratory maritime species), and especially through gradually cutting down all of the forest cover to plant their crops and to obtain timber. Their earlier way of life eventually declined, statues ceased to be carved, and perhaps 1,000 years of peaceful co-existence were shattered – huge quantities of mataa, spearheads and daggers of obsidian, were produced. Conflict led to the toppling of all the statues, and a new social system arose whereby, instead of having hereditary chiefs from the royal clan, an annual leader or ‘birdman’ was chosen by competition.

The platforms (ahu) are mostly located around the coast of this small triangular volcanic island (about 171km2), and constitute an archaeological wonder in themselves. They comprise a core of rubble held in place by a facing of slabs, some of them very finely cut. The statues (moai) were almost all carved from the soft volcanic tuff at the quarry of Rano Raraku. Those erected on platforms, always with their back to the sea, varied from 2m to 10m in height, and weighed up to 82 tons. The biggest ever carved (‘El Gigante’), which is over 20m long and probably weighs 270 tons, still lies unfinished in the quarry among scores of other statues in every stage of An unfinished moai lying in the inner quarry of Rano completion.

Raraku; the crater lake in the background was one of the island’s few sources of fresh water.

The moai are all variations on a theme: a human figure with a prominent angular nose and chin, and often elongated perforated ears containing disks. The bodies, which end at the abdomen, have arms held tightly to the sides, and hands held in front, with long fingertips meeting a stylised loincloth. They represented ancestor figures.

Easter Island also has the richest rock art in the Pacific, with beautiful paintings in caves and drystone houses, and hundreds of fine petroglyphs in caves and the open air. The finest collection of images is found at Orongo, the ceremonial village built on a cliff-top between the ocean and the huge crater of Rano Kau. Here the dominant motif is the ‘birdman’, a half-human frigate bird in a crouching position, often holding an egg.

FURTHER READING Bahn P, Flenley J (2011), Easter Island, Earth Island (Rapa Nui Press) Flenley J, Bahn P (2003), The Enigmas of Easter Island (Oxford University Press)

When Europeans arrived in 1722 (or possibly earlier), there were almost no trees left, which led the visitors to wonder how the huge statues could possibly have been moved and raised. The islanders had managed to counter the environmental damage to some extent by the technique of ‘lithic mulching’, spreading millions of stones over their fields to retain moisture and protect their sweet potatoes and other crops. Eventually, this new contact with the outside world (the islanders having almost certainly been totally cut off from the rest of Polynesia from the start) brought diseases, oppression and many other negative consequences which almost wiped them out. Fortunately, they survived and today take great pride in the spectacular remains of their ancestors’ culture. But had the Europeans not arrived, what would have happened? With no timber, the islanders could never have escaped from their home, and one severe drought could easily have finished them off. We shall never know.

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The most important new research done on Easter Island in recent years has been by a group of German scholars, who have provided detailed information not only on the scale and methods of the slash-andburn deforestation and the lithic mulching, but also and especially on some hitherto unknown aspects of the island’s culture, most notably the existence of elaborate stone structures for channelling and collecting precious rainwater. Some of these impressive installations also seem to have ritual features, which emphasise the crucial importance of freshwater on an island with no rivers or permanent streams.

A few of the many statues left standing on the slopes of the quarry of Rano Raraku, Easter Island, many buried up to their necks in sediment.

“The whole of this small island is an archaeological site.”

Carvings of birdmen on the rocks at the clifftop ceremonial village of Orongo. Competitors in the annual birdman race had to descend the cliff, swim out to the farthest islet, collect the egg of a sooty tern, and bring it back intact to the clifftop.

The restored platform of Tongariki, the biggest ever built, with its 15 moai.

All images © P Bahn

24 SPRING 2015

Walking with the Maasai John Hastings-Thomson

From childhood I have been aware that I had a great-greatuncle who was an African explorer. He had been the first white man to cross Maasai territory and come out alive, and he had a waterfall and a gazelle named after him. It was an ambition to follow in his footsteps, and when three years ago I learnt that a Kenyan was keen to organize a walk following part of Thomson’s Maasai Land Expedition, I wanted to take part.

Ezekiel is Executive Director of Across Maasai Land Initiative (amlikenya.org), a non-profit organization working to promote and support maximum utilization of locally available resources and assets for sustainable livelihoods of the Maasai people in Kenya. One of the main thrusts of their work is girls’ education, to attempt to break the cycle of early arranged marriages and to help women become more proactive in their culture.

The man concerned, Ezekiel Katato, turned out to be a Maasai elder from a village Thomson passed through during his third expedition. Ezekiel had learnt about Thomson at school. It became his ambition to organize a walk covering the section of the expedition that passed through his home area, from the edge of Amboseli National Park to his village, Kilonito, a distance of about 75 miles.

Ezekiel aims to develop the walk as a way of increasing awareness of Maasai culture and encouraging tourism through the links with Joseph Thomson’s travels in Maasai land. He sees this initiative as Maasai-led, but with the encouragement of the Thomson family and supporters.

At the end of May I arrived in Nairobi to join a group of Dutch members of MasterPeace, whose support had made the walk possible. It was an amazing experience; Ezekiel is an excellent organizer. A group of around 60 people from Holland, Japan and Britain guided by young Maasai men and women took part, with a full support team ensuring smooth passage over the six days of the walk and a game drive in Amboseli. We visited several schools during the walk and camped in the grounds of four of them. This gave us the opportunity to spend time with the children, and it is something I would like to do more of in future.

The Maasai proved to be extremely friendly and hospitable, and it was a privilege to walk with them through their environment. So far the Maasai have managed to preserve many of their traditions. Many of the young Maasai accompanying the walk were at college or university, but were still actively involved with their villages and their culture.

Ezekiel’s respect for Thomson is demonstrated by a sign he placed on the walk route. The spelling might not be 100% but that doesn’t detract from the sentiment. This is a wonderful example of a local organization trying to improve their world themselves. It is one I will do my best to support.

The walk was so successful that it is being repeated on 12th-20th November 2015, and I will be taking part again.

There will be more emphasis on spending time in the Maasai villages and in the schools with the children, although there will still be quite a bit of walking between the villages and also with the Maasai and their animals. Anyone interested in taking part can contact Ezekiel direct through the walk website (www. throughmaasailand. org), or email me (hastingsthomson@ btinternet.com) and I will email you a leaflet about the walk and answer any queries you might have.

“…a wonderful example of a local organization trying to improve their world themselves.”

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Adventures in polar exploration A conversation with Børge Ousland FRSGS

Ahead of Børge Ousland’s run of Inspiring People talks in December 2014 (one of which marked the RSGS’s 5,000th talk and 130th birthday) we interviewed him in the Explorers’ Room at RSGS HQ and asked him all about his expeditions and experiences. This conversation is edited from the full interview which can be seen on our YouTube channel.

Please tell us a bit about your last expedition.

The last trip I was on was this year when I took a trip across Spitzbergen. It was a relatively short trip, only a few days, but it is part of a bigger project where we will cross all the 20 biggest glaciers in the world. I am doing this with a French guy called Vincent Colliard, but I think it is going to take us ten years to finish.

What’s the next glacier that you are aiming for?

We are aiming for the Grant Ice Cap on Ellesmere Island.

Actually we have an application in for crossing the Novaya Zemlya in Russia, but Russia is a bit tricky at this stage so we will have to wait and see. This trip will be in May; it’s a good time to do it, not too cold and there’s midnight sun but still good skiing conditions. We will bring a kite [ski] as well to see if the wind is in the right direction, and then we can maybe use it if there are no crevasses and the visibility is good.

That’s the danger with glaciers. Nowadays you can actually plan a lot of these trips ahead of time just using Google Earth, and we are also working with the space division of Airbus as they have a super satellite team so we can actually see the crevasses and plan accordingly. We can take our GPS position from the satellites which means we are not as vulnerable as before. It’s still an adventure, just a bit safer.

Speaking of the danger of expeditions, is there a moment that stands out for you as particularly tough or scary?

Well, I love polar bears, they are just so cute, you are always excited when you meet them. I have met maybe 50 or 60 polar bears; they can be super dangerous but we have always been able to handle the situation so I wouldn’t say that was a bad experience. I think that it’s probably crevasses. I have had a couple of incidents; one in Antarctica where I went through a crevasse, and one in Patagonia, and that is not nice when the floor you are standing on just goes from underneath you. I was hanging on a rope one time, and the other time I was still attached to my sled which broke my fall. Going through the ice at the North Pole in minus 40 was probably more dangerous.

What are the highlights of your many trips?

“When I started that trip I had never been alone in a tent before.”

I don’t think any of my trips are the best, but if I could select one moment it would be reaching the North Pole after my first solo trek. I don’t usually cry but that time I cried because I went through so much on that trip. I started on 3rd March in Siberia, and when I started that trip I had never been alone in a tent before and I was starting on something that had never been done. The first week on the trip, I was just thinking about giving up, so from then on and standing at the North Pole 52 days later was a big victory for me personally.

Is there an explorer from history that you find particularly inspiring?

There are so many, and also modern explorers, but the guy who meant the most to me as an inspiration is Fridtjof Nansen, especially the trip where he left the Fram to try and reach the North Pole in 1895 – that was an amazing expedition, just him and Hjalmar Johansen. They didn’t actually reach the Pole, but it was a truly spectacular journey.

They had a strong will to survive and they did. I think I would have loved to be with Nansen on that trip.

What does geography mean to you?

For me it means to go out and see what the map actually looks like, the combination of the landscape and going out to see and explore it for yourself. Many people say to me, now there is nothing new to be done – well that is the wrong way to look at it because you haven’t seen it until you have seen it for yourself, so my advice is get out there, explore and see it for yourself.

26 SPRING 2015

Re-emerging rail Richard J Ardern

What is the role of the railway in Scotland today?

Maps from the Thirties and Forties show a much wider network (to most towns at least) from Wick to Stranraer and from Hawick to Ballachulish. Mainland ports such as Oban, Kyle of Lochalsh and Aberdeen were railheads for many of the islands. In those days (before containerisation), parcels of all kinds, tractors, livestock and even whole farm removals went by train. Most stations handled goods from domestic coal to building supplies and newspapers. Since then, lorries, buses and private cars have mushroomed in number, the use of the railway as a common carrier has ceased, and many goods and passenger lines have closed.

The amount of hydrocarbons now consumed has rocketed, partly driven by the massive growth of road (and air) transport.

This spring, Scotland’s passenger railway sees three new franchise holders: the Netherlands Railways-owned Abellio has the ScotRail franchise; Stagecoach and Virgin operate East Coast trains from London Kings Cross to Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Inverness; and Serco operates Caledonian Sleepers from London Euston to Glasgow, Edinburgh, Inverness, Aberdeen and Fort William. All three are introducing new capital, new rolling stock, and new ideas. Network Rail continues to be responsible for track speed and capacity enhancements, but the Scottish Government controls the purse.

“…a safer and more sustainable mode of transport.”

Today we are more aware of environmental concerns such as climate change, air quality, congestion, and shortage of road space and parking, particularly in towns and cities, not to mention the costs of the many road accidents which happen every day. Carbon reduction targets have been set but keep being missed, as have the mandatory EU limits to nitrogen dioxide emissions from diesel vehicles in the streets.

The railway is now seen as a safer and more sustainable mode of transport for both passengers and freight, but its resurgence will only happen on a meaningful scale if there is a major intervention, such as a world oil crisis, or by a government motivated to direct modal shift for sound environmental reasons.

How resilient would Scotland be to such a scenario? Our railways have been greatly improved, particularly in the central belt where the new electrified line from Airdrie to Bathgate comes to mind. Hawick has lost its railway but, sensibly, one is being rebuilt from Edinburgh to Galashiels and Tweedbank. Tentacles to Stranraer, Oban, Mallaig, Kyle, Thurso and Wick still exist, but are single track and lack investment. The intensive North Sea oil and gas activity north of Aberdeen to Peterhead and Fraserburgh all had to be developed without a railway due to premature closure. Lines to two of our cities, Inverness and Aberdeen, are still single track with passing places. This is hugely limiting in capacity.

A 20-mile stretch of single track might see two trains one way and one train the other way in the course of an hour.

A similar stretch of double track railway with a headway of five minutes between trains could see twelve trains each way in the hour!

Transform Scotland’s Inter-City Express campaign proposes finishing doubling, and newly electrifying, the lines from Edinburgh and Glasgow to Aberdeen and Inverness (ideally by the end of 2025), and between Inverness and Aberdeen thereafter. It also suggests reopening an electrified fast direct line between Edinburgh and Perth via Kinross, and making Perth the hub of a fast network connecting all seven of Scotland’s cities. There are not even any stretches of 125mph track between these cities at present, but once High Speed Rail reaches Scotland it could be extended north via the new fast line to Perth and then on to Aberdeen by a reopened Strathmore line.

Scotland’s railways are an integrated strategic network serving a good deal of the country. Much more freight could be bulked to rail hubs around the country for onward delivery. Electrified railways reduce carbon use significantly, and it also makes sense to urgently invest in rail and sea alternatives in case there is an oil crisis due to Middle East politics or some other cause. Electric cars may well be further developed, but the electric lorry is a less likely prospect.

By making more use of sustainable rail transport, we help to reduce Scotland’s deleterious impact on climate and the costs of dealing with future flood prevention etc. Perhaps two even bigger challenges are socio-economic: to ensure that we communicate digitally (and travel less), and the economic imperative to reduce distribution miles for goods of all kinds.

Geographers, with our spatial and environmental insights, can help to formulate and support a future transport policy beneficial to Scotland. See www.transformscotland.org.uk/ intercityexpress for more information.

The

27 Geographer14-

SPRING 2015

RSGS Examination Scheme Kenny Maclean

The May 1888 issue of the Scottish Geographical Magazine gives details of the first ever examination paper set by the RSGS. The exam was part of a scheme set up two years earlier by the Society “to improve the methods of teaching Geography” in Scotland’s schools.

Aberdeen, Nairn, Addiewell and Gersa. The two-hour paper

Two hundred and four pupils from ten schools sat the exam paper on Saturday 3rd March 1888, at Edinburgh, Dundee,

the terms used in describing relief, the use of OS maps, and

had been set by two founder members of the Society: James Geikie, Professor of Geology, Edinburgh University; and Francis Grant Ogilvie, Principal of Heriot-Watt College. It was based on a syllabus which covered aspects of mathematical geography, the drawing of a sketch map from a given description.

This map of an island was the basis of four questions, which you might like to attempt.

•D escribe fully the course of the Livingstone River.

• State

approximately the distance from Columbus to Franklin (a) ‘as the crow flies’, (b) by the road by Burnfoot Mains, (c) by the road by Cape Newton. Give any reasons for preferring the Cape Newton road to that by Burnfoot Mains.

• If the level of the sea rose 100 feet, what would be the effect of this on the geography of the island? Refer in your answer (a) to outline, (b) to rivers.

• Describe

shortly the Humboldt Plateau, Marco Polo Range, and Mount Ritter as they would be if the sea level rose 1,500 feet.

28 SPRING 2015

Hay’s Illustrations of Cairo The Sultan Hassan Mosque is one of the subjects featured in Hay’s Illustrations of Cairo, produced by Robert Hay of Linplum House, Haddington. The book, which measures some 55cm by 39cm, contains nearly 30 of Hay’s exquisite illustrations of Cairo, drawn on stone by J C Bourne and published by Tilt & Bogue of London in 1840. RSGS was gifted a copy of the book in the 1920s; it is inscribed as a gift to Helen B Ainslie from her mother in 1841.

Hay left Cairo for the last time in the spring of 1834, after an eight-year spell exploring ancient temples and tombs along the Nile. He created sketches and brief descriptions, as earlier travellers had done, but also architectural plans and detailed copies of murals and inscriptions – producing one of the most thorough studies undertaken at that time.

His wonderful sketches of monuments and panoramas make this book one of the most beautiful in the RSGS’s archive, showing buildings in intricate detail as they would have appeared nearly two hundred years ago. Many of these drawings were produced in sweltering heat, and conditions for much of the work were difficult. A large number of the buildings depicted are no longer standing, but the Sultan Hassan Mosque Mosque is still intact. As you can see from the modern-day photograph, however, the surrounding landscape

has changed remarkably, subsuming the mosque within the city of Cairo.

This book is the only work of Hay’s that was ever published.

On his return to Scotland in 1835 he was confronted by a general disinterest in his findings and was inhibited by the high cost of publication. This book of sketches by Bourne was lavishly printed but did not sell well, losing Hay almost £2,000, the equivalent of around £180,000 in today’s prices.

The

29 Geographer14-

SPRING 2015

Dr Robert D Ballard, RSGS Livingstone Medallist 2001 Jo Woolf

“Most of the Earth remains unexplored – never seen by human eyes. Scientists have barely looked into our own dark abyss.”

We are familiar with the opening sequence of James Cameron’s epic movie, Titanic. A small deep-sea probe shines its lonely beam of light into the hull of the wrecked ship, illuminating a world of perpetual darkness as shoals of sea creatures scuttle away in surprise; while at the surface, 12,000 feet above, a team of scientists rejoice at the discovery.

“…a revolutionary new idea that would allow the eyes of the world to gaze into our deepest oceans.”

larger capsule would act as a control base, while the smaller vessel, nicknamed a ‘tethered eyeball’, could dive even deeper, venturing into confined spaces and probing depths where no human could safely go.

Using fibre-optic cable, live video images can be sent back to the research vessel and beamed around the world in seconds. Volcanic activity has been measured, geological faults have been explored, and strange new life forms have been discovered, defying the laws of science yet thriving in an abyss of perpetual darkness. It’s easy to imagine that we have explored all of our planet, but we forget that over 70% of it is covered by ocean.

And so far, metaphorically speaking, all we have done is dip our toe in it.

The truth behind the fiction is just as dramatic. On 1st September 1985, a team led by the explorer Bob Ballard succeeded in pinpointing the last For scientists, Ballard’s achievements are akin resting place of the doomed cruise to landing a space module on a distant planet, liner at the bottom of the North because they have opened up a whole new world Dr Ballard (left) received his Medal from RSGS Chairman Professor Proudfoot.

Atlantic; and the method that they of knowledge. Ballard was obviously aware of the used, which employed two unmanned analogy when he named the Inner Space Center, probes, was the brainchild of Ballard himself. which is his research base at the University of Rhode Island’s Graduate School of Oceanography. In 2008 he founded Surprisingly, although it was one of Ballard’s dreams to the Ocean Exploration Trust, whose purpose is to conduct locate the Titanic, this is not the achievement that he would scientific projects using Ballard’s specially-commissioned most like to be remembered for. Even before that momentous ship E/V Nautilus and the underwater vessels Hercules and discovery, he had enjoyed a long career in underwater Argus. Ballard’s lifelong passion is now helping to educate exploration, observing and recording some of the most and inspire a new generation of scientists – but millions of extraordinary natural sights on our planet. For Ballard, people with no scientific background have found themselves the sight of six-feet-long tube worms growing in complete equally enthralled, because he is opening doors onto a world darkness at depths of 8,000 feet around the Galápagos that is completely new to human eyes.

Islands was one of the most jaw-dropping experiences in his life.

“We had been told that all life on the planet owed its existence to the sun... It didn’t make sense to us initially. It was a discovery of massive dimensions.”

As a child, Ballard had always been intrigued by the ocean.

He devoured books such as Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, and studied the sea life of rock pools near his home on the coast of California. Graduating in chemistry and geology, he worked as an oceanographer in the US Navy, and when his military service ended he began exploring the ocean around Florida and Maine in a manned submersible.

In 1979 he and the geophysicist Jean Francheteau stared open-mouthed as vents of super-heated liquid, blackened with minerals, billowed from the sea bed in the Pacific. Their startling observations and temperature readings altered almost everything we already knew about hydrothermal activity.

Now in his seventies, Robert Ballard is still endlessly fascinated by the world that lies beneath the waves. In recent years he has been searching for ancient shipwrecks in the Mediterranean, and he admits that the thrill never fades.

“Discovery is an unbelievable feeling. People ask, ‘What is your greatest discovery?’ and I say, ‘It’s the one I’m about to make.’”

In 2001, the RSGS awarded Robert Ballard the prestigious Livingstone Medal, in honour of his amazing achievements, acknowledging him as “one of the world’s best known deepsea explorers, having logged more hours in the deep than any other marine scientist.”

“Then the bulb in my head went off. Why not bring all of this together – my love of the undersea world and a desire to share that love with everyone in a way that would not destroy the very thing we loved?”

At first, Ballard was convinced that the future of underwater exploration lay in manned submersibles; but his plans underwent a sea-change of their own, and he came up with a revolutionary new idea that would allow the eyes of the world to gaze into our deepest oceans. His brainwave consisted of two unmanned capsules launched from a research vessel at the surface and connected to each other by a cable. The

FURTHER READING The Eternal Darkness by Robert D Ballard (Princeton University Press, 2000) NOAA profile: oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/edu/oceanage/05ballard/ CBS News video interview: www.cbsnews.com/news/bobballard-the-great-explorer-25-11-2009/

BOOK CLUB

30 SPRING 2015

The World

This Changes Everything

A Traveller’s Guide to the Planet

Capitalism vs the Climate

(Lonely Planet, October 2014)

Naomi Klein (Penguin, March 2015)

Sustainability A History Jeremy L Caradonna (Oxford University Press, September 2014) The ideas that underlie and define sustainability can be traced back several centuries. Locating the underpinnings of the movement as far back as the 1660s, Caradonna considers the origins of sustainability across many fields throughout Europe and North America. Taking us from the emergence of thoughts guiding sustainable yield forestry in the late 17th and 18th centuries, through the challenges of the Industrial Revolution, the birth of the environmental movement, and the emergence of a concrete effort to promote a balanced approach to development in the latter half of the 20th century, he shows that while sustainability draws upon ideas of social justice, ecological economics, and environmental conservation, it is more than the sum of its parts and blends these ideas together into a dynamic philosophy.

Once a decade, Naomi Klein writes a book that redefines its era. No Logo did so for globalization. The Shock Doctrine changed the way we think about austerity. In This Changes Everything, her most provocative and optimistic book yet, she upends the debate about the stormy era already upon us, exposing the myths that are clouding the climate debate. She argues that we have been told the market will save us, but the addiction to profit and growth is digging us in deeper every day; that we have been told it’s impossible to get off fossil fuels, but we know exactly how to do it; that we have been told that humanity is too greedy and selfish to rise to this challenge, but all around the world the fight back is already succeeding in ways both surprising and inspiring.

Walking the Nile Levison Wood (Simon & Schuster, January 2015) In November 2013, former soldier Levison Wood embarked on one of the last great explorations.

In this detailed, thoughtful, inspiring and dramatic book, he recounts his walk along the length of the River Nile, uncovering its history, and coming face to face with the great story of a modern Africa emerging from its past.

Exploration and Africa, two of his great passions, fed his curiosity and strengthened his determination to succeed. But the challenges of the terrain, the climate, the animals, the people, and his own psychological resolution, were immense.

From the source of the Nile in the forests of Rwanda to its mouth on Egypt’s Mediterranean coast, Wood encountered extraordinary people, natural wonders and unique wildlife, in some of the continent’s most remote and spectacular locations.

Reader Offer - 10% discount

Offer ends 30 June 2015

The Polar North Ways of Speaking, Ways of Belonging Stephen Pax Leonard (Francis Boutle Publishers, October 2014) For 12 months, Stephen Leonard lived with a small group of Inuit in a remote corner of northwest Greenland, learning their language, living their way of life, and documenting their spoken traditions. Numbering c700, the Inugguit (‘big people’) live in the northernmost permanently inhabited place in the world, occupying four different settlements scattered across an area the size of Germany, and speaking an exceedingly complex language understood by few outsiders. As a teenager, Leonard had read about the Inugguit through the accounts of Sir Wally Herbert, who lived in the region in the early 1970s.

This is a story of a year spent with people whose ancient way of life is now in sharp transition, where the traditional is juxtaposed with a modern consumerist lifestyle. Affected directly by climate change, their quiet corner of the planet is melting, and their white, Arctic universe is about to become the epicentre of a geopolitical battle over the remaining finite resources left on Earth.

Readers of The Geographer can purchase The Polar North for only £18 (RRP £20) with FREE postage.

To order, please phone 020 8889 7744, quoting the reference ‘RSGS’.

Help us to make the connections between people, places and the planet.

Phone 01738 455050 or visit www.rsgs.org to join the RSGS. Lord John Murray House, 15-19 North Port, Perth, PH1 5LU Charity SC015599

Printed by www.jtcp.co.uk on Claro Silk 115gsm paper.

100% FSC certified using vegetable-based inks in a 100% chemistry-free process.

Lonely Planet delivers its first global travel guide, taking highlights from its best guidebooks and putting them together into one 960-page volume, to create the ‘ultimate guide to Earth’. This user-friendly A-Z gives a flavour of each country in the world, including a map, travel highlights, information on where to go and how to get around, and some quirkier details to bring each place to life. With nearly 1,000 colour photos of must-visit highlights, and more than 200 colour maps, this is a great planning resource.