Philip I. Buckland

Strategic Environmental Archaeology Database (SEAD)

Environmental archaeology encompasses a wide range of scientific methods for analyzing the results of past human activities, environments, climates and perhaps most importantly, the relationships b ...

Paleoentomology : Insects and other Arthropods in Environmental Archaeology

Insects are the most diverse group of animals on the planet, and as suchare present in a wider variety of habitats than most other organism groups.This diversity, in addition to a long evolutionary ...

Caught in a trap : landscape and climate implications of the insect fauna from a Roman well in Sherwood Forest

Sherwood Forest in Nottinghamshire is often considered a well-preserved ancient landscape, subsequently having survived by way of centuries of management as a hunting preserve. Archaeological evidence suggests otherwise, with an enclosed landscape beginning in the pre-Roman Iron Age and continuing through the Roman period. Due to the nature of the region’s soils, however, there is little empirical, palaeoecological evidence on its environmental history prior to the medieval period. This paper presents an insect fauna from a Roman well in a small enclosure in north Nottinghamshire, on the edge of Sherwood Forest, and its interpretation in terms of contemporary land use. Wells and small pools act as large pitfall traps and may effectively sample aspects of the local and regional insect fauna. The Wild Goose Cottage fauna and its environmental implications are also compared with a number of archaeologically and geographically similar contexts.

Building Cyberinfrastructure from the Ground Up for the North Atlantic Biocultural Organization : Introducing the cyberNABO Project

The cyberNABO Project is designed to solidify a developing multidisciplinary community through the development of cyberinfrastructure (CI) to study the long-term human ecodynamics of North Atlantic, a region that is especially vulnerable to ongoing climate and environmental change. It builds build upon prior sustained field and laboratory research, rich and diverse datasets, and a strong involvement by local communities and institutions. cyberNABO is currently hosting a series of workshops aimed at taking these collaborators and stakeholder communities to a new level of integration and to develop capacity for building CI and visualizations in subsequent funding cycles. Research on the long-term sustainability in the Arctic requires compiling data from over thousands of square miles, hundreds of years, and multiple disciplines, from climatology to archaeology to folklore. The complexity of datasets of this scale presents a unique challenge to create a CI system that results in interoperability and accessibility of data - a task that needs an explicit plan and extensive expertise from a variety of fields. Investing in a comprehensive CI system provides the opportunity to integrate collaborators and data from the natural sciences, social sciences, and the humanities, thus providing the opportunity for a holistic approach to long-term human ecodynamics in the context of rapid social and environmental change and for the creation of digital tools for expanded northern community involvement in global change research. In order to address questions of this scale, however, this collaborative group needs to integrate multiple sources, types, and formats of data to address multidisciplinary questions and provide effective support for visualization and modeling efforts that can connect knowledge systems.

Epigean Spiders at Abisko Scientific Research Station in Swedish Lapland (Arachnida: Araneae)

Summary The Torneträsk area, including the Abisko National Park, Sweden, is arachnologically one of the best explored sites of Fennoscandia. Here, we report the results of pitfall trapping at Abisko Scientific Research Station during the summers of 2004 and 2005, recording 791 individuals of 62 species of spiders. As expected, at the species level, samples were dominated by members of the Linyphiidae, while at the level of individuals Pardosa hyperborea and other lycosids were dominant. Two subsites, on heath and bog, differed substantially in their species profile: seven species were statistically overrepresented on the drier heath site, while two showed a strong preference for the wetter bog site. The samples also contained the first reported lateral gynandromorph of Archaeodictyna consecuta (Dictynidae). This study, from 195 km north of the Arctic Circle, provides important reference data for continued studies on the long-term effects of climate change on Arctic ecosystems.