Gary Stratton
Thesis: Landscape archaeology of the Moray Firth littoral and its hinterland in the first millennium AD.
Supervisor: Dr Alex Woolf
Biography
Graduated in 2004 from the University of St. Andrews with an MA(hons) in Mediaeval history and archaeology, plus an obsession with all things Pictish. In 2007 from the University of Edinburgh with a MSc. in First millennium studies, and commenced my current part time studies in 2009.
Since 2008 I have been involved in various archaeological activates around Scotland, notably at 2008-2010 sessions of the NMS research dig at Birnie (MOR) and from last year at Clarkley hill (MOR). I have also experience with RCAHMS field survey, and community digs at Abbey Craig (STL) and Sheriffside (ELO) in 2011, as well as my own landscape based fieldwork throughout the Moray Firth littoral and hinterlands.
Thesis
This thesis seeks to investigate political power and social organisation in the landscape of the Moray Firth region during the first millennium AD. It will reconstruct the methods by which the landscape was inhabited by the people and managed by the political elite. This shall be achieved through a detailed analysis of the relevant history, place-names and archaeology of the region defined as an eighty mile circle around the fortress headland of Burghead. This is the largest fortified place in the greater Moray Firth region, and while there is no desire to see this as a ‘capital’, it is a convenient geographically central point.
The Moray Firth region has often been neglected in the studies of the Roman Iron Age and the Picts and the cultural and political origins of this powerful and rich agricultural region have never attracted much attention until relatively recently. Dr Alex Woolf’s placement of the important Pictish kingdom of Fortriu in the north makes it possible to see the history of the region of this kingdom in a new way. From the perspective of the late Iron Age the Moray Firth region’s relationship with the power of Rome has been greatly enlightened by the archaeological investigations at sites such as Culduthel, Birnie and Clarkly Hill. All these sites, to one degree or another, extend in chronology into the Pictish period and beyond. Further afield in Aberdeenshire, recent discoveries at Rhynie hint at a Pictish era power centre, with roots established in the Iron Age power landscape. More of these sites surely wait to be found in the relatively rich archaeology of the region, which has rarely been considered on a regional scale, and certainly not tracing these developments for the whole first millennium.
While individual sites show potential, little work has been done at the macro level, gathering together all relevant data from the late Iron Age to the end of the first millennium. Such a synthesis is vital if we wish to understand the changes and continuities throughout the pre and early history of the region as a whole, and that synthesis is the goal of this thesis.
Academic papers delivered
- ‘Who are you calling a Pict?’: Fortriu, archaeology and the Picts, Postgraduate Mediaeval studies Seminar Series (PMSS), 23/2/11 and Representations of Scottish authority to 1603 (intentions and use) workshop 1, 29/6/2011.
- ‘Speaking our language’: The great debate on the Pictish language, PMSS, 30/11/2011
- Part of the Postgraduate panel at the Scottish Medievalists conference, 7-8/1/2012
- ‘Pictish art, Pictish authority’, Representations of Scottish authority to 1603 (intentions and use) workshop 2, 8/2/2012