Claire Nesbitt

Life of an ancient monument: Hadrian's Wall in history

The Romans are Britains favourite invaders, and Hadrians Wall is among the largest and finest of the relics they left behind on the island. However, as our authors urge, we should demand more intellectual depth from our monuments today. Not simply a cultural asset anchored in the Roman empire, Hadrians Wall had a busy afterlife, a material history reflecting the uses, attitudes and emotions of later centuries. Its ‘biography’ not only captures new information about the last two millennia, it offers a story that the modern visitor deserves to hear.

Small-Scale Evaluation of a Post-Medieval Blackhouse at Bereiro, Lewis, Western Isles of Scotland

Abstract This paper presents the results of the excavation of two dry-stone structures in the abandoned blackhouse village of Bereiro, near to the township of Crowlista, Isle of Lewis. The research was undertaken as part of a wider landscape project investigating human occupation on the Uig peninsula from prehistory to the post-medieval period (the Uig Landscape Project). The excavation aimed to collect dating evidence from the site to determine the date of construction and abandonment of one of the earliest structures in the village, in an attempt to establish the longevity of the blackhouse form in the vernacular architecture of medieval Atlantic Scotland. The results of the dating program are considered alongside historical documents, which record the social history of the village within the context of the long-standing research questions regarding blackhouse villages. These questions include the development of the agricultural field systems and continuity or change in the Hebridean landscape from later-prehistory to medieval times.