Fieldwork Report and Post-Excavation Research Design:Bay of Laig, Isle of Eigg, September 2022

• Main Authors: Sanmark, Alexandra, Kalmring, Sven, Wilken, Dennis, Lu, Erman, McLeod, Shane, Jennings, Andrew
• Format: Book
• Language: English
• Published: 2024
• Subjects: North Atlantic
• Online Access: https://pure.uhi.ac.uk/en/publications/509acee5-856a-438d-bb20-d939ff38bc51; https://pureadmin.uhi.ac.uk/ws/files/50091018/Eigg_Fieldwork_Report_22.pdf

The fieldwork formed part of the research project The Norse and the Sea: The Maritime Cultural Landscape of Scandinavian Scotland (NaS), funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, the German Research Foundation). This project investigates the maritime cultural landscape in Scandinavian Scotland (c. AD 790-1350), through an interdisciplinary approach using archaeological, written and toponymic evidence and addresses the overarching questions of connectivity and communication in Norse Scotland. The term ‘maritime cultural landscape’ was originally coined by archaeologist Christer Westerdahl to denote ‘the unity of remnants of maritime culture on land as well as underwater’. This formed part of his ground-breaking analytical framework developed for the Bothnian/Baltic area and which has been successfully applied in Scandinavia, Germany and the North Atlantic. Until now, however, this concept is virtually unexplored for Scandinavian Scotland, despite being equally applicable to this area. By bringing this innovative research framework combined with archaeological and geophysical fieldwork to Scotland, this project is generating new data on maritime culture and thus enabling important study of this geographic area from a whole new perspective. The project builds on three main strands of research: existing research on the Norse settlement of Scandinavian Scotland, smaller research initiatives as case studies focusing on maritime Scotland, as well as research thoroughly rooted in, and mirrored on, maritime cultural landscapes from Germany, Scandinavia and the wider North Atlantic. The research is being carried out through three work packages. The first one encompasses a PhD project entitled Norse harbours in the west of Scotland for which a number of Norse landing places in Scotland are being identified and examined through geophysical survey and targeted excavation. In the second work package The Norse in the North and West of Scotland: settlements and the ...