Project overview
Small islands present archaeologists with the opportunity to study the sustainability and resilience of complex socioecological systems over time. Do they lack socioecological resilience as argued by Petzold (2017) or Ellwood (1968) over one thousand people crowding on to Rathlin's flat windswept mass is almost an insult to nature. This project will investigate and reveal the changing landscapes, environment and population history of 6 small islands around the Sea of Moyle over the last three millennia. Today the North Channel of the Irish Sea is seen as a remote and border zone between Scotland and Ireland. In the past this was not the case, and the Sea of Moyle or Sruth na Maoile (Scots Gaelic and Irish), was at various times a coherent and central geographic region crossed by sea voyagers as part of a sea-highway and linked by culture and kinship. The area was also a major gateway into Ireland and Scotland from the early Mesolithic to the post-Medieval Period. Following on from a pilot study on the island of Rathlin, this project will compare the archaeological and historical evidence of changing demography and environment between the islands (Rathlin, Tory, Arran, Islay, Gigha & Colonsay) that superficially share a common history of colonization, but are geographically and topographically diverse. There is also a wide variation in the archaeological information base from recent and high (Rathlin) to minimal/unknown (Gigha). All have evidence of being both occupied and defended within the Iron Age and all six saw the establishment of early Christian communities. At least 5 of the islands were within the Dalriada (Dál Riata) over-Kingdom in the 6th to early 7thC, and all were subject to early Viking Raids and then formed part of the Scandinavian Sudreyjar, or Southern Isles for the next 400 years. The later Medieval and post Medieval history of the islands is more complex and divergent but lastly all six islands saw major, if not remarkable, well-documented changes in population over the last 300 years. The size of these islands, and weather-related isolation, can exacerbate social and environmental shifts and one aim is to investigate whether the preceding environmental and economic history of the islands conditioned their response to external pressures such as new colonisers (the Vikings) or population changes (18th-19th C). These massive changes in population (1 to 66 persons km2) are well recorded by abandoned crofts, villages, field systems and even alien plant species which have recently been surveyed. We also have evidence from previous studies that least four of the six islands have high potential for environmental archaeology and particularly the utilization of lake sediments from lochs. Importantly all islands have had recent archaeological surveys or are undergoing current survey (Tory Island). The project will be the first to explicitly compare archaeological proxies from islands in the same region with archaeological and historical data. It will also trial some new techniques (sedaDNA and biomarkers) in a controlled archaeological setting where we have the optimum chance to verify data and avoid reinforcement syndrome. The islands offer the best potential we can have to test new population proxies including feacal sterols, diatom-derived phosphorous proxy as well as sedimentary C:N and stable isotope ratios. Chironomid-derived temperature reconstructions will provide the climatic background. This project will be the first to adopt a regional-scale approach to a past political entity designed to address these issues via a comprehensive and interdisciplinary approach. We will integrate archaeological, palaeoenvironmental archives (including ancient DNA and biomarkers) in the search for the signature of colonization and human responses to environmental stresses in small island communities off the western Coast of Greater Britain.
