A MARITIME PALIMPSEST LANDSCAPE: HISTORIC EXPLOITATION OF SCOTLAND’S COASTAL RESOURCES
Channel: European Association of Archaeologists
Date: 07/10/2020

In many countries and for much of human history, access to the sea has been of great importance for a variety of purposes. Maritime landscapes are some of the most dynamic environments which offer access to a range of resources, and which have often been drastically altered to facilitate the exploitation of these resources. Offering mobility through access to the sea for transport, communication, trade, and war, coastlines themselves represent an important resource, and can also present opportunities to create land through reclamation, and harness water power.
This paper will present a case study from the Forth Estuary in Scotland, where the natural environment has been repeatedly and dramatically reshaped. Alteration of the coast edge to facilitate mobility by river and sea, and of the wider landscape in order to exploit different resources in the immediate and wider area reflects the changing demands of society and developing responses to a changing environment. The resulting palimpsest landscape contains evidence for modification of the coast and hinterland by a variety of groups and individuals for a range of purposes from the creation of a Royal naval dockyard lending it an internationally significant role in medieval European politics to the more prosaic local concerns of agriculture, trade and transport. Further, this paper will examine the complex interactions between the human shaping of the landscape and the environmental consequences, and how successive transformations relate and impact on each other in this dynamic environment. Additionally, examination of the results of recent archaeological, historical and palaeoenvironmental investigations will ask how physical evidence of early activity can manifest in this landscape and what can be learned about the societies that have shaped it.

Author(s): Graham, Elinor - Dawson, Tom - Hambly, Joanna (University of St Andrews; The SCAPE Trust)