This week’s blog is by Professor Ingrid Mainland, of the UHI Archaeology Institute at UHI Orkney. Colleges Scotland is marking the diversity and variety of work that Scotland’s 24 colleges do with our blog series, 24 in 2024.

The UHI Archaeology Institute is a teaching and research organisation dedicated to advancing our understanding of the historic environment through the creation, interpretation and dissemination of archaeological knowledge.

Founded in 2015, the institute provides a locus for innovative research, university education and lifelong learning in outstanding heritage environments. 

Based at UHI Orkney, the institute also has research and teaching staff in Shetland and the Western Isles.

The Institute recently secured £1.6 million funding to establish a world-class centre for environmental archaeology in Orkney.

The Archaeology and Environment Science (AEonS) project is in partnership with Orkney Museums, Historic Environment Scotland (HES), Glasgow University, Archaeology Scotland, the Scotland’s Coastal Archaeology and the Problem of Erosion (SCAPE) team based at St Andrew’s University, and the University of Southampton.

The facility will include specialist environmental archaeology laboratories, allowing the scientific study of plant and animal remains, together with ancient soils and sediments fundamental to understanding the past. It will also host new imaging equipment for creating digital records of archaeological artefacts.

The centre will enable partners, visiting researchers, museums, commercial units, community groups, and UHI students access to a central research hub.

It will be supported by a mobile laboratory and use of the HES Engine Shed facility in Stirling that will enhance the delivery of projects across the Highlands and Islands and more widely through Scotland. The mobile laboratory will be available for outreach events hosted by community groups and schools as well as to support research fieldwork across Scotland.

Environmental archaeology is recognised as being an important discipline, not only in understanding the effects of natural environmental changes and human impact in the past but also in looking forward through researching subjects such as biodiversity change, sustainability, economic strategies, rewilding and futureproofing natural resources. This Orkney-based environmental research has true potential for global reach.

Unfortunately, across the UK expertise and facilities for environmental archaeology research are diminishing. Gaps in capacity are emerging at national and regional scales particularly in specialisms, such as soil science, zooarchaeology and archaeobotany, which may lead to generational gaps in these specialisms and a national inability to take such research forward in the future.

The AEonS facility and partnership has been established to meet these needs and ensure that skills gaps and shortages are met to provide a sustainable future for Scotland in Environmental Archaeology.