Professor Ingrid Mainland, Dr Jen Harland and Dr Julia Cussans presented papers at the recent Association for Environmental Archaeology Conference, held in Stavanger, Norway.
This year’s conference theme was Life on the Edge: Exploring Resilience & Adaptations to Challenging Environments, a subject which is certainly applicable to several of our recent and ongoing projects involving northern Scotland.
The event, in the Stavanger Archaeology Museum, was attended in person and online by over 100 people from a variety of countries, and all presenting was done in person. Several papers included UHI authors or contributors.
Ingrid discussed her work on the ongoing Climate, Crops and Crisis? research project, led by Dr Rosie Bishop and based out of the University of Stavanger. Ingrid’s talk, The beasts that set the pattern of human life: resilience and adaptation in livestock farming practices in Atlantic Scotland and Southern Norway during early prehistory, was co-authored with Sean Denham and together they discussed the zooarchaeological evidence in Scotland and southern Norway through prehistory, focusing on adaptation and change in the face of change. This project and its results featured in other talks too.
Jen presented some of her early research for the new TRANSECTS project, Transitions in Energy for Coastal Communities over Time and Space. This project started in 2024 and involves specialists from across the social sciences and humanities, investigating marine energy sources and how they affect coastal communities in northern and eastern Scotland and the Humber Estuary. Here, Jen discussed her work on Whale oil as marine energy in Northern Scotland: from community to commerce, with UHI co-authors Anne Bevan, Daniel Lee and Antonia Thomas, alongside University of Hull’s David Atkinson.
Julia discussed results from our recent Looking in From the Edge project, Trade, resilience and surplus production in post Medieval Orkney and Shetland: results from the LIFTE Project. This was co-authored by UHI’s Jen Harland, Ingrid Mainland, Sarah Jane Gibbon and Daniel Lee, as well as project post-doctoral researcher Bart Holterman and University of Lincoln’s Mark Gardner.
Julia also presented a poster, highlighting the new AEONS project and upcoming environmental archaeology facilities that will soon be available at UHI Orkney. This was co-authored by UHI’s Ingrid Mainland, Scott Timpany and Jane Downes, with Lisa Brown from Historic Environment Scotland.
Finally, UHI work featured in several other presentations.
Viking to Christian landscapes across the Norwegian and the North Sea (V2C): an interdisciplinary environmental archaeology project, was presented by Shaddai Damaris Heidgen, of the Arctic University of Norway, with co-authors including the UHI Archaeology Institute’s Jen Harland.
This is a new project using sedaDNA and other biomolecular methods. Jen is a co-investigator and the project will include new analyses of sediments from UHI excavations at Skaill Farm, Rousay. Niklas Hausmann (Leibniz-Zentrum für Archäologie) presented his ongoing project, Recent updates on Cnoc Coig, a late Mesolithic shell midden at the Northwest Fringe of Europe, and this was co-authored by UHI’s Jen Harland and PhD student Holly Young.
Ingrid’s work on dental microwear and sheep diet was discussed by Ramona Harrison (University of Bergen), as part of the project Two Valleys – Power, wealth and the plague in two valleys.
Thanks again to the conference organisers! We had a great time. Thanks also to The UHI’s conference fund, which funded Julia’s attendance.
Picture, from left: Julia Cussans, Ingrid Mainland, Ramona Harrison, Jen Harland and Nik Hausmann
