Caroline Wickham-Jones

The changing pace of insular life: 5000 years of microevolution in the Orkney vole (Microtus arvalis orcadensis).

Island evolution may be expected to involve fast initial morphological divergence followed by stasis. We tested this model using the dental phenotype of modern and ancient common voles (Microtus arvalis), introduced onto the Orkney archipelago (Scotland) from continental Europe some 5000 years ago. First, we investigated phenotypic divergence of Orkney and continental European populations and assessed climatic influences. Second, phenotypic differentiation among Orkney populations was tested against geography, time, and neutral genetic patterns. Finally, we examined evolutionary change along a time series for the Orkney Mainland. Molar gigantism and anterior‐lobe hypertrophy evolved rapidly in Orkney voles following introduction, without any transitional forms detected. Founder events and adaptation appear to explain this initial rapid evolution. Idiosyncrasy in dental features among different island populations of Orkney voles is also likely the result of local founder events following Neolithic translocation around the archipelago. However, against our initial expectations, a second marked phenotypic shift occurred between the 4th and 12th centuries AD, associated with increased pastoral farming and introduction of competitors (mice and rats) and terrestrial predators (foxes and cats). These results indicate that human agency can generate a more complex pattern of morphological evolution than might be expected in island rodents.

THE CHANGING PACE OF INSULAR LIFE

Island evolution may be expected to involve fast initial morphological divergence followed by stasis. We tested this model using the dental phenotype of modern and ancient common voles (Microtus arvalis), introduced onto the Orkney archipelago (Scotland) from continental Europe some 5000 years ago. First, we investigated phenotypic divergence of Orkney and continental European populations and assessed climatic influences. Second, phenotypic differentiation among Orkney populations was tested against geography, time, and neutral genetic patterns. Finally, we examined evolutionary change along a time series for the Orkney Mainland. Molar gigantism and anterior‐lobe hypertrophy evolved rapidly in Orkney voles following introduction, without any transitional forms detected. Founder events and adaptation appear to explain this initial rapid evolution. Idiosyncrasy in dental features among different island populations of Orkney voles is also likely the result of local founder events following Neolithic translocation around the archipelago. However, against our initial expectations, a second marked phenotypic shift occurred between the 4th and 12th centuries AD, associated with increased pastoral farming and introduction of competitors (mice and rats) and terrestrial predators (foxes and cats). These results indicate that human agency can generate a more complex pattern of morphological evolution than might be expected in island rodents.

Scotland's first settlers: the Mesolithic seascape of the Inner Sound, Skye, and its contribution to the early prehistory of Scotland

The Mesolithic occupation of Scotland began soon after the end of the last glaciation, between 10,000 and 9000 years ago. Considerable research has been undertaken in the past two decades (Mithen 2000; Pollard & Morrison 1996; Woodman 1989; Young 2000); much has been published, more is awaited, and work continues apace. Mesolithic sites occur throughout Scotland, though recent archaeological activity has been concentrated on the western seaboard. The coastal nature of much of the Scottish Mesolithic has long been recognized, although the contribution of inland sites is becoming more apparent. The relationship between shell middens and lithic scatters and the nature of the midden sites themselves are slowly becoming clearer (Bonsall 1996; Finlayson 1998), though the make-up of the material culture remains vague, as known early sites with preservation of organic materials are few and far between and specialists remain divided over their interpretation. More widely, it is generally recognized that the Mesolithic occurred during a time of dynamic environmental change although the impact on the human population remains to be documented. It was in this context that the Scotlands First Settlers (SFS) project was set up in 1998. SFS chose to concentrate on an area of known Mesolithic potential: the Inner Sound--a body of water between the Isle of Skye and the Scottish mainland. Previously recorded sites in the area include the midden at An Corran (Saville & Miket 1994) and lithic scatters at Redpoint (Gray 1960) and Sheildaig (Walker 1973) (FIGURE 1). Although Mesolithic work has long been biased towards coastal projects, the potential of the coastal zone was so great that it was decided to target the seascape for research, while focusing particularly on issues of local mobility, resource exploitation and early Holocene climate (Finlayson et al. 1999 & forthcoming; Hardy & Wickham-Jones 2000a; 2000b; 2001a; forthcoming a; forthcoming b).

The Management of Submerged Terrestrial Archaeology: An Assessment of Current Awareness of the Seabed Resource Around Scotland

Abstract This paper assesses the provision of cultural heritage information relating to offshore submerged archaeology for Environmental Impact Assessments as part of the management of the seabed around Scotland. Over the past millennia areas of the seabed around Scotland have at times been dry land. This means that they were available for human settlement and are likely to preserve the remains of ancient habitation and other activity. Elsewhere in the UK and in Europe work on submerged archaeology has confirmed the existence of an extensive and often well-preserved resource stretching back to the last Ice Age and beyond. This paper is concerned solely with sites that once comprised terrestrial archaeological sites; it does not cover wreck archaeology. The submerged terrestrial archaeological resource is fragile, and little understood. In Scotland it has been ignored until the inception of a research project in 2006, The Rising Tide, which is investigating past sea-level change and submerged archaeology around Orkney. Up to now, general management has been carried out through a system of benign neglect despite increasing threat to the resource from the development of the seabed. The Marine (Scotland) Act enshrines the need to protect and manage submerged sites and landscapes, through the implementation of marine planning, licensing, and Marine Protected Areas. One of the principal relevant measures for environmental protection through which this is carried out is the inclusion of archaeological information as a critical resource for Environmental Impact Assessments on the seabed. This is enshrined in EC Directives (and applies equally to sites on land). However, good management is hampered by a lack of baseline data on the resource and by a lack of awareness among those responsible. Responses to a questionnaire on the awareness of submerged archaeology and the need to consider it as part of the seabed planning process highlighted a number of serious weaknesses in the current system, not least a lack of awareness, of Scottish-based guidelines, and relevant skills.

Archaeology and fiction

In the summer of 2006 author Margaret Elphinstone, embarking on a novel set in the prehistoric period (Elphinstone 2009), sought out archaeologist Caroline Wickham-Jones to discover more about Mesolithic Scotland. The resulting process proved to be more than a simple question and answer session: over three years, the two of us, novelist and archaeologist, each renegotiated the boundaries of our perceptual frameworks. This paper is intended to examine the learning process that most students of archaeology unconsciously experience, and it goes on to champion a respected role for fiction. As the status of history is reduced in the school syllabus, the number of people learning about their past from fiction will increase. Very few people learn much about the Mesolithic through formal education; indeed we are both astonished at how many well-educated people have no idea when or what the Mesolithic was. As representatives of our professions, we here demonstrate the special and timely benefits of what we term the informed novel.

Archaeological excavations at Nethermills Farm, Deeside, 1978–81

The Mesolithic site of Nethermills Farm, Crathes, Banchory, was identified from fieldwalking that took place between 1973 and 1977 and it was excavated between 1978 and 1981 under the direction of James Kenworthy. Kenworthy interpreted the site as a ‘hunter-gatherer camp’ with probable evidence for a circular structure, but publication of the excavation was never completed. This paper draws on specialist work undertaken immediately after excavation, together with new analyses and radiocarbon determinations from original samples. It focuses on the results of excavation: material from the fieldwalking is briefly considered towards the end of the discussion, but detailed analysis of the lithics from fieldwalking is left for future research. A number of stratified features were excavated and recorded, together with a lithic assemblage of over 30,000 pieces, which includes many narrow blade microliths. It is not possible to uphold the interpretation that the cut features represent the remains of a specific structure but it is clear that Mesolithic activity took place here, probably comprising repeated visits over a considerable period of time. The radiocarbon determinations cover a wide spread of activity from the Mesolithic to the Bronze Age – though there are no clear chronological indicators of later prehistoric activity in the finds from the site. Kenworthy chose to excavate only a tiny proportion of the site at Nethermills, which extends some 2km along the River Dee. The likelihood that stratified features may survive elsewhere makes this a Mesolithic site of considerable significance – especially when considered in the context of the many other Mesolithic sites along the River Dee, from its source to the sea.

What Landscape Means to Me

Caroline Wickham-Jones is a freelance archaeologist specialising in the study of the earliest settlement of Scotland. Her work has led her to some of the wilder parts of the Highlands and Islands. In the 1980s she directed excavations at Kinloch on the island of Rum and more recently she has been working around the Inner Sound for Scotland’s First Settlers, of which she is a co-director (www.moray.ac.uk/ccs/settlers.htm). As she explains below she has long had associations with broader issues of landscape management: she was a Trustee of the John Muir Trust and sat on the Science Board of the Nature Conservancy Council for Scotland. In 2002 she left the city to live in Orkney where there is a much better quality of life both for herself and for her son: here she continues to work as an archaeologist and to be involved in more general issues – she is now on the local Countryside Access Forum. As well as carrying out research into the early settlement of the islands she is working as part of a team on plans for the World Heritage sites in Orkney.