Projects

HiLSS: Historic Landscape and Soil Sustainability: Mapping how people shaped ancient landscapes informs strategies for sustainable futures.

Landscape heritage

The HiLSS Project aims to investigate the relationships between sustainability and landscape heritage. It makes particular reference to soil loss and degradation over the long term. The project will take a multidisciplinary approach that combines:

• archaeology
• Historical Landscape Characterisation (HLC)
• geosciences
• computer-based geospatial analysis (GIS – Geographical Information Systems)
• modelling (RUSLE – Revisited Universal Soil Loss Equation)

Quantifying the impact of human activities

The research objectives of the HiLSS project are to quantify the impact of human activities during the Late Holocene. This will enable us to create spatial models that can inform the development of sustainable conservation strategies for rural landscape heritage. This project focuses on two separate mountainous regions. These present historical and cultural similarities but are located in different climatic zones: the first is Tuscan-Emilian Apennines, Italy; the second is northern-mid Galicia, Spain.

Read more on the Centre for Landscape website.

• Project Leader: Knut Ødegård (Oslo), Håkon Ingvaldsen (Oslo), Jim Crow (Edinburgh), Athanasios K. Vionis (Cyprus), Sam Turner (Newcastle)
• Partners: University of Oslo, University of Edinburgh, University of Cyprus, 2nd Ephoria of Byzantine Antiquities, Norwegian Institute at Athens

The island of Naxos in the Cyclades has for long been renowned for its rich Byzantine heritage, and in particular the numerous decorated churches.

The settlement pattern of Byzantine Naxos has been far less studied. This survey project builds on research undertaken since 2006 by the partners to explore the early medieval landscape.

Naxos as a whole has a unique corpus of around 150 Byzantine churches many of which had their origins between the 6th/7th and 10th centuries.

The early date of many of the churches, coupled with the results of recent ceramic surveys, has the potential to provide clear archaeologically derived evidence of the landscapes and settlements of Naxos before the middle Byzantine period.

Such evidence is found nowhere else in the Byzantine world.

Among the documented settlements of the Byzantine period, Kastro Apalirou in the southern part of the island stands apart.

Survey of the site by the Oslo team has documented:

• more than 75 houses
• two church complexes
• a monastery
• between 40 and 50 cisterns
• city wall and fortifications
• internal road grid
• water supply and drainage system

It is now evident that this was a town of a considerable size and very likely the main administrative centre of the island in the Byzantine period.

• Project Leader: Jon Mills (Newcastle University, UK)

Cultural heritage through time (CHT2) is a European project whose scope is to:

• develop time-varying 3D products, from landscape to architectural scale
• envisage and analyse lost scenarios
• visualize changes due to anthropic activities or intervention, pollution, wars, earthquakes or other natural hazards

The main aim of the CHT2 project is to:

• merge heterogeneous information and expertise
• deliver enhanced four-dimensional (4D) digital products of heritage sites

CHT2 is working on the full integration of:

• the temporal dimension
• its management and visualization, for studying and analysing Cultural Heritage structures and landscapes through time

Read more on the project website.

• Project leader: Ian Haynes (Newcastle University); Paolo Liverani (Università degli Studi di Firenze); Giandomenico Spinola (Musei Vaticani); Salvatore Piro (ITABC, CNR); Iwan Peveritt (Soluis)
• Staff: Alex Turner (Newcastle University)

The scavi beneath the Archibasilica of S. Giovanni in Laterano (St John Lateran) cover over 5,097 m2. They are of particular interest for the study of the transformations of Rome under Septimius Severus and Constantine and the later development of the Lateran Patriarchy.

In addition to rendering accessible the earliest phases of the Constantinian basilica and the Lateran Baptistery, the scavi contain what is believed to be the Nymphaeum of Pope Hilarus and parts of the famous Oratory of the Santa Croce.

Other earlier features of importance within the scavi include elements of the barracks and principia of the Castra Nova Equitum Singularium, constructed under Septimius Severus, a substantial bath complex and an the so-called casa trapezoidale variously interpreted as a house or inn but almost certainly a macellum.

Still earlier structures accessible for study include sections of palatial housing in use up until the second century AD.

Material from the scavi has already been extensively studied:

• Liverani, P. (ed.), (1998)
• Laterano I: Scavi sotto la Basilica di S. Giovanni in Laterano.1: Materiali. Vatican City

There have been many important papers on different elements of the complex.

Of particular note, for example, is the major programme of research, led by Olof Brandt of the Pontificio Istituto di Archeologia Cristiana that has focussed on the Lateran baptistery. 

To date, however, there has never been a comprehensive survey of the entire complex. Some elements of the scavi have never been surveyed and many of the structures exposed within it remain ill-understood. Early plans of key areas, often reproduced, mask significant detail. 

The Lateran Project is the first attempt to undertake a fully-comprehensive survey and analysis of the complex. The Project began in 2012, following a couple of experimental seasons in which different methodological approaches were evaluated and has now completed two seasons of fieldwork.

In addition to generating a detailed survey of all visible elements of the complex, the project team are undertaking a comprehensive Ground Penetrating Radar survey both within the scavi and in the immediate vicinity. In addition to allowing the high-resolution analysis of individual structures, the survey data allows for the study of relationships between contemporary buildings.

In this respect the emerging data is notably important for the study both of the integration of the imperial horse guards and their buildings into the city under Severus and for the study of the new Christian centre established under Constantine.  No less important is the evidence the scavi yields for the way successive architects built upon earlier structures to reshape the topography of the Caelian. 

The use made by the builders of the Constantinian basilica of elements of the castra is of particular interest.

A further important aim of the Lateran Project is to provide advanced building survey training for students of the partner organisations.

Interim reports

Read the following abstracts from papers of the British School at Rome:

• 80 (2012) 369-371

• Project leader: Mark Jackson and J.N. Postgate (Cambridge)
• Sponsors: British Academy (Large Grant), National Geographic (2007), Dumbarton Oaks, Washington DC (2009, 2011)

The Kilise Tepe Byzantine project is directed by Mark Jackson (as co-investigator) under the umbrella of the multi-period Kilise Tepe Archaeological Excavation Project (directed by Prof. J.N. Postgate).

Kilise Tepe is a mound located in the Göksu Valley in southern Turkey which was excavated as part of a rescue project (1994-1998) and is now the focus of this new research excavation.

The site provides us with the opportunity to study an entire Byzantine rural settlement during the neglected period of profound change from late Antiquity to the 13th century AD.

In the new campaign of excavations, which began in 2007, we aim to provide new evidence and interpretation for the social dynamics of Byzantine rural life by focusing on well-preserved Byzantine vernacular buildings and their surrounding features.

We have employed both geophysical survey techniques and excavation to study the architectural character of the site within its topographical setting. The project has focused on the retrieval of faunal remains and palaeobotanical samples as well as refining the local ceramic sequence.

We seek ultimately to address questions about local Byzantine rural life and to contribute to broader questions of continuity and transition in south-central Anatolia during the Byzantine period.

In 2018 and 2019 Mark Jackson and teams of students from Newcastle University continued museum-based research at the Silifke Museum to quantify and record artefacts from the Byzantine contexts at Kilise Tepe. We also carried out further sampling for radiocarbon dating in conjunction with the Silifke Museum and TUBITAK.

References

• Neri, E., Jackson, M., O'Hea, M., Gregory, T., Blet-Lemarquand, M., Schibille, N. (2017) “Analyses of glass tesserae from Kilise Tepe: New insights into an early Byzantine production technology”. Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 11, 600-612
• Jackson, M. (2015) “2007–2011 Excavations at Kilise Tepe: A Byzantine Rural Settlement in Isauria” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 69, 355-380 (PDF)
• Jackson M. “Byzantine Settlement at Kilise Tepe in the Göksu Valley”. In: Hoff, M., Townsend, R, ed. Rough Cilicia: New Archaeological and Historical Approaches. Oxford: Oxbow Books, 2013, pp.219-232 (PDF)
• Jackson, M.P.C.; Postgate, J.N.; Serifoglu, T.E. (2015) “Kilise Tepe Kazıları (1994-2012)”, Mersin Arkeolojik Kazı ve Araştırmaları, Ü. Aydınoglu (Ed.), Mersin: Mersin Valiliği: 59-71
• Jackson M. “Byzantine Settlement at Kilise Tepe in the Göksu Valley”. In: Hoff, M., Townsend, R, ed. Rough Cilicia: New Archaeological and Historical Approaches. Oxford: Oxbow Books, 2013, pp.219-232
• Jackson M.P.C., Postgate, J.N. and Serifoglu T.E. (2013) “Kilise Tepe 2011 Yili Kazilari” Kazi Sonuçlari Toplantisi 34(2), 5-24
• Jackson, M. (2012) “Excavations of the Byzantine-Period Levels at Kilise Tepe 2011: Preliminary Report on the Final Excavation Season” Dumbarton Oaks Project Grants
• Jackson, M. (2010) “The Byzantine Rural Settlement at Kilise Tepe: A Preliminary Report on the 2009 Season” Dumbarton Oaks Project Grants
• Jackson M, Postgate N. (2010) “Excavations at Kilise Tepe 2009”. Kazi Sonuçlari Toplantisi, 32(3), 424-446 (PDF)
• Jackson M. “Medieval Rural Settlement at Kilise Tepe in the Göksu Valley”. In: Vorderstrasse, T., Roodenberg, J.J, ed. Archaeology of the Countryside in Medieval Anatolia. Leiden, Netherlands: Netherlands Institute for the Near East, 2009, 71-83
• Jackson MPC. “Local Painted Pottery Trade in early Byzantine Isauria”. In: Mango, M.M, ed. Byzantine Trade, 4th-12th Centuries: The Archaeology of Local, Regional and International Exchange. Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate, 2009, 137-144
• Collon D, Jackson M, Postgate N. (2009) “Excavations at Kilise Tepe 2008”. Kazi Sonuçlari Toplantisi, 31(1), 159-184 (PDF)
• Jackson M, Postgate N. (2009) “Excavations at Kilise Tepe 2007”. Kazi Sonuçlari Toplantisi, 30(3), 207-232 (PDF)
• Jackson M. (2008) “Byzantine Ceramics From The Excavations at Kilise Tepe 2007 And Recent Research On Pottery From Alahan”. Arastirma Sonuçlari Toplantisi, 26(2), 159-174

• Project leader: Lisa-Marie Shillito
• Staff: Ian Bull (Co-I), John Blong, Helen Whelton, Dennis Jenkins, Thomas W. Stafford Jr, Katelyn McDonough
• Sponsors: NERC

For more information on this project, please visit this website.

• Sponsors: British Institute at Ankara, College of Charleston, Gerda Henkel Stiftung (Dusseldorf), Dumbarton Oaks, Society of Antiquities, Hugh Last Fund

The Göksu Archaeological Project is an investigation of the upper Göksu River valley in southern Turkey, using intensive and extensive survey techniques to examine changes in settlement patterns over time.

The project is led by Dr. Hugh Elton, formerly Director of the British Institute at Ankara. From 2004 he has included a survey team from the College of Charleston coordinated by Dr. James Newhard.

Mark Jackson has been responsible for the study of the ceramics from 2004-2007 with Billur Tekkok in 2004 and Çiðdem Toskay Evrin in 2006/7 and conducted survey at Dagpazarý.

This research works to provide a greater understanding of the origins and development of this landscape. This includes the role that Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown may have played in its design and creation.

• Project dates: June 2015 - present
• Project leader: Dr Caron Newman and Professor Sam Turner
• Sponsors: The National Trust

Rothley Lake is made up of two separate lakes (High Lake and Low Lake) on either side of a road, created to give the impression of a single serpentine body of water. It is part of the historic Wallington Estate in Northumberland, though at a distance of 4 miles, north east of Wallington Hall. Most but not all, the historic Wallington Estate is now in the ownership of the National Trust, including the High Lake at Rothley. The Rothley High and Low lakes are part of a designed landscape which had associations with Lancelot 'Capability' Brown. The origins and development of the Rothley High Lake designed landscape are imperfectly understood; thus its true significance is not accurately appreciated.

The purpose of the work being undertaken by the McCord Centre is to:

• provide a greater understanding of the origins and development of the landscape
• identify the role that Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown may have played in its design and creation

Brown’s involvement in Wallington is highly significant historically, because Brown was local to Wallington. He grew up nearby at Kirkhale and went to school in Cambo, on the Wallington Estate. It is likely that the Wallington Estate would have been influential in helping to form Brown’s ideas of landscape appreciation. It is known that Brown was the designer for Rothley Low Lake, and the High Lake is clearly in Brown's serpentine style, but there is no definite link between Brown and the High Lake.

Staff from the McCord Centre undertook survey and limited excavation at Rothley High Lake in 2012 and 2013. This latest phase of fieldwork included further excavation and survey, in order to answer the following research questions:

• How much of the 18th century designed landscape at Rothley High Lake survives as identifiable and restorable?
• How many landscape features proposed by Lancelot Brown were implemented? How much of the designed landscape can be attributed to him or considered to be influenced by him?
• How do Rothley Lakes relate to the wider Wallington Estate designed landscape? Why were they originally constructed, what was their purpose, how did they develop and evolve?
• How are Rothley Lakes linked to the wider, non-designed landscape? How was the Rothley Lakes designed landscape influenced by the pre-existing landscape? How did the lakes influence the development of the surrounding area?

The purpose of the work was to aid the National Trust’s decision making in the management of the Rothley High Lake area. In particular:

• appropriate conservation management appropriate to the historical character and significance of the designed landscape

The National Trust is concerned to:

• make landscapes in their ownership available, stimulating and valued to a range of audiences

Contact:

Dr Caron Newman caron.newman@newcastle.ac.uk

A research project that combines the passion and expertise for Roman frontier studies at Newcastle University with the latest developments in digital humanities.

This project is interested in:

• archaeological and heritage management challenges
• employing digital solutions and tools to stimulate further research and learning

Expertise, staffing and management are drawn from:

• the School of History, Classics and Archaeology
• School of Arts and Cultures

A number of exciting projects were undertaken during the course of the initiative, and these are summarised on the project website.

The late Roman villa at Lufton was excavated during the 1950s and 1960s by Leonard Hayward FSA. It is an unusual structure dominated by a richly decorated ‘bath suite’ that some see as a Christian baptistery.

• Project leader: James Gerrard
• Partners: South Somerset Archaeological Research Group

This unusual site is the focus for an landscape project that seeks to:

• understand the development of this part of Somerset during the first millennium AD

Located on the periphery of local central places in the:

• Iron Age
• Roman
• early medieval period

This landscape offers a unique opportunity to study the major social, economic and political changes that swept across Britain between late prehistory and the high medieval period.

To date our work has:

• clarified the nature and extent of the partially excavated villa building
• uncovered a hitherto unknown settlement and landscape of probable Iron Age / Romano-British date using geophysical survey

Analysis of documentary and cartographic sources are allowing:

• the complex agricultural exploitation of this landscape to be understood
• its relationship with the short-lived Norman power centre at Montacute (where William the Conqueror’s half brother built a castle).

Visit the project blog for more information.

The aim of this project is to map historic landscape types and areas and their potential sensitivity to woodland expansion.

• Project dates: February 2016 - January 2017
• Project leader: Dr Caron Newman
• Sponsors: Historic England

The UK government, through its Forestry and Woodlands Policy Statement, has made a commitment to increase England's coverage of woodland by 2060. It has been recognized that woodland expansion may be a risk to historic sites and landscapes and may also have an impact on historic landscape character. The aim of this project is to map historic landscape types and areas and their potential sensitivity to woodland expansion.

The project is using GIS to map the capability of historic landscape types and areas to absorb new woodland. The end result will be a Woodland Futures map which will indicate the future scale and type of woodland expansion, The map will also provide the capability to analyse the potential for, and sensitivity to, woodland expansion of different historic landscape types and areas. The project will also produce a woodland expansion assessment framework, which will be made available digitally and in hard copy for use at a strategic and site-based level. The framework is aimed at end users who need to identify areas of potential for woodland expansion. It will also provide advice on designing new areas of woodland or forestry with regard to historic landscape types and areas, as well as ensuring consideration of the interpretation and protection of historic features and heritage assets.

More information:

• The project is now complete and has been uploaded to ADS.
• All the reports can be downloaded here.

The project aims to recover aspects of a forgotten and misremembered past in the Western March of England.

• Project dates: June 2016 - October 2016
• Project leader: Dr Caron Newman and Dr Richard Newman
• Sponsors: Newcastle University Institute for Social Renewal and Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society

The project aims to recover aspects of a forgotten and misremembered past in the Western March of England. It will look at the archaeological landscape of part of the Anglo-Scottish border, using non-intrusive survey to record relict landscape features. These range from abandoned long, linear boundaries, areas of unmapped ridge and furrow, deserted settlements and relict field systems.

The aim of the project is to gain a better understanding of the processes of change in the landscape of the Anglo-Scottish border, focusing on northern Cumbria. With participation from undergraduate students from Newcastle University, it also aims to create links to members of the local community interested in the history and archaeology of the area.

The project will collate archaeological data from the Historic Environment Record for Cumbria and from the National England Archive, aerial photography and Lidar imagery. The project will also expandthe archaeological knowledge base through fieldwork survey.

More information:

• News on the project can be found on our blog page
• Contact - Dr Caron Newman

The past two decades have witnessed a marked turn in the heritage management debate towards the social values of cultural heritage.

• Project leader: Stelios Lekakis

This could be considered a result of several ongoing political, economic and post-modern processes, with significant impact on the theoretical appreciation of cultural heritage and criticism of the established management practices.

Although theory thrives, a few practical tools have been provided to meet this growing appreciation of the social values of cultural heritage, and cater for a more shared, democratic and empowering heritage management.

This project aims to devise and implement a new tool for the engaging and sustainable management of cultural heritage.

Based on solid theoretical grounds, the RES.CO.PART tool will attempt to promote the efficient involvement of communities as stakeholders in decision-making processes for the management of cultural heritage in landscape.

It will combine interdisciplinary methods of mobile technologies, spatial analysis (especially Geographic Information System (GIS)) based Historic Landscape Characterisation (HLC) with research practices from cultural anthropology, attempting to retrieve and present ethnographic data to interested interlocutors.

The end product will be a modular, mobile application that could function as a probe for collecting ethnographical information and as a medium of presenting them, leading in more informed decision-making.

Areas of focus are two contrasting communities, Naxos in the Aegean Sea (GR) and part of the East Devon ‘Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty’ (AONB) (UK).

• Project leaders: Graham Fairclough (Newcastle), Sam Turner (Newcastle), Almudena Orejas (CSIC), Bas Pedroli (Wageningen), Henk Baas (RCE/CHA), Veerle van Eetvelde (Gent), Gro Jerpåsen (NIKU), Bolette Bebe (Bioforsk)
• Partners: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC), Spain; Wageningen University, Netherlands; Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed/Cultural Heritage Agency, Netherlands; University of Gent, Belgium; Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research

CHeriScape is an international network project. It's organised by seven institutes in five countries and funded under the European Joint Programming Initiative for Cultural Heritage and Global Change.

The network starts from recognition that landscape is not merely a category of heritage, but a global frame within which heritage can be differently understood, cherished and protected. Landscape also offers ways to draw greater social, economic and environmental benefits from heritage.

We will uncover the natural connections that exist between the domains of landscape and heritage, both in research and policy terms. In the face of significant environmental and social change, seeing heritage through the lenses of landscape allows heritage to act as a solution not a problem.

CHeriScape will work in the interlocking spaces between the two Council of Europe conventions:

• the European Landscape Convention
• the Faro Convention on the Value of Cultural Heritage to Society

They will demonstrate how they align and support each other.

A third aspect of our thinking will be based on the ESF/COST Science Policy Briefing ‘Landscapes in a Changing World’.

Our method is to arrange five large conferences, to which we will invite keynote speakers and also policy makers and stakeholders, and to produce from them a suite of products aimed at strengthening the influence that landscape and heritage can have on both high-level and local environmental and social policy.

To do this we have brought together a small but highly experienced and expert consortium, with a range of disciplines including some not normally associated with heritage (because landscape is one of the most interdisciplinary of fields of study).

We are also acutely aware that landscape falls simultaneously into all three categories of heritage defined by the JPI; it is at one and the same time tangible and intangible, and increasingly it is being experienced by many people through digital means. CHeriScape will therefore also use this rich concept of ‘landscape’ as a laboratory to closely examine the nature and potential of ‘heritage’.

More information:

• Cheriscape
• CHeriScape key ideas (PDF: 1 MB)

This project aims to carry out a comparative analysis of the landscape settings of a number of early medieval monastic sites in the Post-Roman West.

• Project leader: Emmet Marron

The desertum is a regular motif in narrative accounts of the foundation of early medieval monastic sites – a remote wilderness, where the holy man and his followers can extricate themselves from the distractions of secular life and achieve a greater level of spirituality.

While there is a general acceptance among both archaeologists and historians that the desertum found in western sources was a hagiographical conceit, aimed at emulating the example of the original desert father, St. Anthony, there is a lack of empirical data with which to carry out a full critique of the motif.

This project aims to provide such data by carrying out a comparative analysis of the landscape settings of a number of early medieval monastic sites in the Post-Roman West. Building on the research fellow’s previous work at the monastic site of Annegray (Haute-Saone, France), founded in 591, the project involves a meticulous, multilayered analysis of of the site, including remote sensing (photogrammetry, geophysics, laser scanning), excavation, pollen core sampling and Historic Landscape Characterisation (HLC) to build up a picture of the landscape in which the monastery was established. This core study will then be compared with contemporary monasteries in France, Switzerland and Italy to provide a clearer image of the reality of the desertum.

The major output of the project will be a monograph on the comparative study of Annegray and its contemporary continental sites. The project will also organise a major international conference of the theme of early monastic landscapes, bringing together researchers working on the topic from across Europe.

Assessing the historic character of landscapes through integrated remote sensing, scientific dating and digital data analysis

• Project dates: June 2017 - May 2020
• Project leader: Dr Soetkin Vervust
• Sponsors: FWO (Research Foundation – Flanders) and the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Curie grant agreement No 665507

Cultural landscapes are recognized as key elements in the common European heritage. Nevertheless, in many regions their development and the historic features that contribute to their character are not yet satisfactorily understood by scholars or landscape managers.

Landscape historians have attempted to integrate studies of archaeological and documentary sources with historical cartography, routinely using GIS (Geographical Information Systems) in the process. Methods including retrogressive analysis (to examine how successive phases have developed) and Historic Landscape Characterisation or HLC (to represent the dominant historic character of the present landscape) are widely used to address landscapes on the regional scale. However, to fully understand how cultural landscapes were formed over the long term, and how elements from earlier landscapes contributed to the heritage of later periods (up to the present day), better methods for identifying ancient landscape features and understanding the chronological relationships between them are needed.

This project aims to address these methodological shortcomings by integrating the results of new data sources with the more conventional approaches currently being adopted. In particular, it will combine analysis of newly-available remote sensing data (e.g. lidar) with data from targeted field survey using GPS, terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) and geophysical surveying methods, as well as innovative field-profiling and sampling of earthwork features for chronometric analysis using OSL (optically stimulated luminescence).

Data will be collected for case study areas in Northumberland (UK), Cornwall (UK) and Coastal Flanders (BE). It will then be analysed in an integrative GIS environment. This should provide more insight into which remnants of the different developmental stages have remained present in the landscape and will result in a more thorough reconstruction of the landscapes’ long-term evolution, with a higher level of chronological detail, for an area beyond the micro-level of an archaeological excavation. In this way, the results will help improve the reliability of the HLC method and provide the basis for an innovative comparative study of cultural landscape change.

• Project dates: September 2014 - August 2016
• Project leader: Sophie Hueglin
• Staff: Sam Turner
• Sponsors: FP7 (People), Marie Curie Intra-European Fellowship

In the Early Middle Ages stone architecture was reintroduced to many parts of Europe by secular and ecclesiastical authorities who recruited building specialists from distant regions.

This project will analyse how and why this radical change from wood to stone architecture took place by investigating builders and patrons:

• movements
• materials
• methods
• motivations

Previous research has focused on texts and objects. For example, Bede speaks of workmen from "Francia" building Wearmouth abbey.

There in Wearmouth also remains of mechanical mortar mixers have been found, an archaeological feature that is known from numerous sites between Naples and Newcastle.

The best-known group of expert builders, the so-called “magistri commacini”, is connected to historical sources (e.g. "Leges Langobardorum") and finds (e.g. S-Z-styli) as well.

At the turn of the first Millennium Rodulfus Glaber sees the world clad in a “white mantle of churches” by building activity. The stone buildings had influence on the way people experienced the landscape as well as the inside of the buildings enabled them to new ways of visual and aural impressions. Even before that, change could be perceived with the setting up of the building site.

In this project, the traditional approach will be complemented and contrasted using a GIS-based analysis of the historic landscape and building materials in three selected regions where previous scholarship offers excellent foundations for new research: England, Switzerland, and Italy.

At the regional scale, the research will examine geomorphologic conditions and natural resources in relation to travelling routes, settlement patterns and density of population in the Early Middle Ages.

This will create a clearer picture of the respective living and working conditions of the building specialists as well as the resources, connections and intentions of their employers.

3D-photogrammetry and analysis of building materials developed in each of the detailed case-studies will allow insights into the individual buildings’ histories and the materials and methods used for their construction.

Publications

• Hüglin S., Medieval Mortar Mixers Revisited. Zeitschrift für Archäologie des Mittelalters 39, 2011, 189-212

This project will develop emerging landscape characterisation methods that can be used across and between disciplines to address the challenges of environmental and social change through landscape.

Project leaders:

• Sam Turner (Newcastle University, UK)
• Engin Nurlu (Ege University, Turkey)

Staff:

• Sam TURNER and Mark JACKSON Newcastle University, UK
• Professor Engin NURLU and Dr Nurdan ERDOGAN, Ege University, Turkey
• Dr Günder VARINLIOĞLU, Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University, Turkey
• Dr T. Emre ŞERIFOĞLU, Bitlis Eren University, Turkey
• Dr Ebru ERSOY, Adnan Mederes University, Turkey

RCUK-TUBITAK Newton Project

Landscapes underpin sense of place and identity: with careful management, they can transform people’s quality of life. Although landscapes change constantly as a result of human actions and natural processes, researchers have not yet created spatial models at a large scale that provide detailed insights into historic landscape change. Such models could be used to understand fundamental issues such as the links between historical changes, intensification and climate change, and to inform planning for the future.

To do so, the project will develop emerging landscape characterisation methods that can be used across and between disciplines to address the challenges of environmental and social change through landscape. Leading specialists from Turkey and the UK will work together with a team of Early Career Researchers to identify and address challenges facing societies in both countries through landscape.

During the research programme the team will develop innovative and practical methods to create positive impacts within 5-10 years. This is especially urgent in Turkey as quickening economic development and social change create both positive and unintended negative impacts including loss of landscape character and poor-quality landscapes. The partners will promote research using Historic Landscape Characterisation (HLC), an interdisciplinary technique developed in the UK and first piloted in Turkey by members of the team with the aim of informing positive landscape planning and management.

• Project leader: Dr Elif Koparal, Prof. Sam Turner, Dr Mark Jackson
• Sponsors: British Academy Newton Advanced Fellowship

This project will develop innovative methods for landscape archaeology through the case-study of the Urla-Çeşme Peninsula (İzmir). This is an area that forms a considerable part of the Ionian landscape.

The research will build a new approach to historic landscapes through a series of successive steps. The first step is to:

• analyse datasets collected by the Applicant from 2006-15
• supplement them with targeted geomorphological survey

The second step is to:

• apply Historic Landscape Characterization (HLC) to model
• present the changing historic character of the study area

Finally, the project will use the resulting models to facilitate co-creative approaches to landscape with local communities. The aim is to develop skills, create knowledge and promote understanding of landscape as cultural heritage amongst both academic researchers and non-specialist community groups.