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ONLINE REPORTS
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Report 1 Agriculture was introduced into Scotland, ultimately from the Near East, probably in the fifth millennium BC. Successive populations have altered the landscape to cultivate and to create pastures for their herds and flocks to an extent that has so affected the British landscape that there is now no part of it that is truly wild. Cultivation remains, especially areas of rigs and furrows, are the clearest presentation of this domestication of the landscape and, for some periods, are the only evidence we have for human activity in the landscape. Thus, though humble and ubiquitous, areas of rig and furrow constitute part of Scotland's heritage. This report shows that there are regional, and chronological differences in the form of surviving rig that reflect different geographies, the local histories of agricultural evolution and the nature and date of the final or current land-use. However, although detailed studies have been rare in the past, this report shows that recent regional studies based on consistent records from individual sites will contribute significantly to our understanding of past agricultural practices in Scotland. This guideline contains a set of recommended minimum standards for preservation in situ, or by recording in advance of destruction, of areas of rig and furrow cultivation. A body of competent experts, drawing on a wider pool of knowledge by consultation, has drafted this guideline as a recommendation to planners and other heritage managers. It has received the support of the Scottish Trust for Archaeological Research and of Historic Scotland. This guideline focuses upon the requirement for a policy for the protection of certain important areas of rig and furrow in advance of development. Many of the issues raised in the guidelines relate to the relative value of different areas of rigging in the Scottish landscape. Therefore a number of issues raised in this guideline will be relevant to land management considerations, including the selection of particular areas of rigging for management under agri-environment schemes and other initiatives. Date of publication 2001 ISBN: 0 9539978 0 4 pp 28 B&W illus |
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Report 2 Hebridean sites of the coastal sand cliffs and associated machair have been known for many years. Artefacts and ecofacts of various types have long been collected from archaeological sites in the eroding sand-cliffs of the machairs of the Outer Hebrides. Early in 1983, personnel of the then Central Excavation Unit of Historic Scotland, AOC Archaeology Group's predecessor, revisited very nearly all of the coastal archaeological sites then known in the Long Isle, with the specific task of identifying those at immediate threat from coastal erosion and of assessing the feasibility of their excavation or preservation. Some 32 sites were seen to be affected by active erosion; at nine of them preservation was not being pursued and excavation was feasible. These sites were of two morphotypes: sites exposed in roughly vertical sand-cliffs and sites exposed over relatively large horizontal areas of sand deflation. It was decided to examine one sand-cliff site along its exposed face, Balelone in North Uist, its excavation designed to explore both the problems associated with the excavation of deep midden sites with complex stratigraphy and the not-inconsiderable problems of excavation in sand. In the light of the Balelone trial excavation, a new structured approach combining coring and tapestry excavation was employed at four sites; the sand-cliff sites of Baleshare, on North Uist and Hornish Point on South Uist, and the deflation sites of South Glendale, South Uist and Newtonferry, North Uist. The results offer new insight into the nature of late Bronze Age and Iron Age society in the Western Isles. This report was published by the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland as Scottish Archaeological Internet Report 3, free to download. Date of publication 2003 ISBN 0-903903-72-5 |
