A Model of Coastal Wetland Palaeogeography and Archaeological Narratives: Loch Spynie, Northern Scotland

Michael Stratigos

doi:10.1080/14732971.2021.1930775

A Model of Coastal Wetland Palaeogeography and Archaeological Narratives: Loch Spynie, Northern Scotland

Michael Stratigos^* (Corresponding Author)

^*Corresponding author for this work

Archaeology

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Abstract

This paper presents a new model for the palaeogeography of an important archaeological region in northern Scotland – the former Loch Spynie, Moray. The method employed refines existing glacio-isostatic adjustment and relative sea-level models for the Holocene with open data sources of geomorphological, geotechnical and archaeological data to constrain the proposed former extent of marine, estuarine and other wetland environment through time. The study area is shown to be an important isolation basin that is highly likely to preserve dateable relative sea-level index points. The resulting palaeogeographic model for the former Loch Spynie estuary is then used to develop an archaeological narrative of coastal and maritime activity in later prehistory critiquing and supporting an emergent paradigm in understanding later prehistory in northern Scotland. This study demonstrates how it is possible to develop palaeogeographic models at scales useful for site-based archaeological interpretation bridging a problematic gap in archaeological narratives.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	43-58
Number of pages	16
Journal	Journal of Wetland Archaeology
Volume	20
Issue number	1-2
Early online date	25 May 2021
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1080/14732971.2021.1930775
Publication status	Published - 25 May 2021

Bibliographical note

Acknowledgements
This work was instigated in collaboration with Ian Armit and Lindsey Büster to contextualise their work at Sculptor’s Cave funded by Historic Environment Scotland, and thanks to David Anderson for putting us in touch. Thanks again to Lindsey Büster for her comments on a draft of this paper. Thanks go to Bruce Mann for his support and encouragement of this work. Thanks also to Richard Bradley and Ronnie Scott who were very supportive in conversation about this research. A massive thank you to the Glasgow University Archaeology Department Reading Group whose comments and suggestions on an early draft of this paper were invaluable, and thank you to two anonymous reviewers whose reviews improved this paper.

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

SDG 14 Life Below Water

Keywords

coastal archaeology
Early Bronze Age
Late Neolithic
maritime havens
North Sea
Palaeogeography
Scotland
sea-level change

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10.1080/14732971.2021.1930775Licence: CC BY

Stratigos_JWA_A_Model_Of_VoR
© 2021 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis GroupThis is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Final published version, 2.62 MBLicence: CC BY

Cite this

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title = "A Model of Coastal Wetland Palaeogeography and Archaeological Narratives: Loch Spynie, Northern Scotland",

abstract = "This paper presents a new model for the palaeogeography of an important archaeological region in northern Scotland – the former Loch Spynie, Moray. The method employed refines existing glacio-isostatic adjustment and relative sea-level models for the Holocene with open data sources of geomorphological, geotechnical and archaeological data to constrain the proposed former extent of marine, estuarine and other wetland environment through time. The study area is shown to be an important isolation basin that is highly likely to preserve dateable relative sea-level index points. The resulting palaeogeographic model for the former Loch Spynie estuary is then used to develop an archaeological narrative of coastal and maritime activity in later prehistory critiquing and supporting an emergent paradigm in understanding later prehistory in northern Scotland. This study demonstrates how it is possible to develop palaeogeographic models at scales useful for site-based archaeological interpretation bridging a problematic gap in archaeological narratives.",

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note = "Acknowledgements This work was instigated in collaboration with Ian Armit and Lindsey B{\"u}ster to contextualise their work at Sculptor{\textquoteright}s Cave funded by Historic Environment Scotland, and thanks to David Anderson for putting us in touch. Thanks again to Lindsey B{\"u}ster for her comments on a draft of this paper. Thanks go to Bruce Mann for his support and encouragement of this work. Thanks also to Richard Bradley and Ronnie Scott who were very supportive in conversation about this research. A massive thank you to the Glasgow University Archaeology Department Reading Group whose comments and suggestions on an early draft of this paper were invaluable, and thank you to two anonymous reviewers whose reviews improved this paper.",

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KW - sea-level change

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A Model of Coastal Wetland Palaeogeography and Archaeological Narratives: Loch Spynie, Northern Scotland

Abstract

Bibliographical note

UN SDGs

Keywords

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