Paper short abstract:

This paper will explore the integration of archaeological, historical and geoarchaeological data to explore perceptions of, and responses to, prehistoric sand movement in Scottish Islands.

Paper long abstract:

Islands and their coastlines have long been important landscapes for settlement, resource procurement and structuring social interaction. Such environments have also proven fruitful in exploring environmental change and its impacts on human activity. Coastlines are dynamic and locally-variable; manifestations of environmental change such as flooding, erosion and sand movement can have immediate, visible impacts on coastal settlement and geomorphology. Historical sources provide a detailed view of climatic deterioration and its far-reaching effects on coastal populations throughout Britain, particularly during the Little Ice Age. One notable impact is that of coastal sand movement and inundation, leading to the marginalisation and abandonment of agricultural land.

The presence of sand horizons at coastal archaeological sites attests to similar movements in the prehistoric period across northwest Europe. However, the nature of impact and response in the prehistoric record is less clear, with environmental proxies often proving ill-defined. Prehistoric archaeologists face the challenge of reconciling temporal scales provided by the environmental sciences with scales that are archaeologically-meaningful to explore similar human-environment relationships at deeper timescales. This project investigates the nature, source and chronology of sand movement on archaeological sites by combining archaeological evidence with historical analogy and geoarchaeological methods.

This paper will discuss how disparate approaches can be integrated to produce meaningful interpretations of how humans perceive and respond to environmental change. Selected multi-period sites in Orkney and the Outer Hebrides will be used to explore the multitude of ways in which complex relationships between 'climate' and settlement can be interpreted on a local scale.