Session: #164

Theme & Session Format

Theme:
5. (Extreme) Environments – Islands, Coasts, Margins, Centres
Session format:
Regular session

Title & Content

Title:
Coastal Archaeology in Small Islands: Research Perceptions, Biases, Methods and Approaches
Content:
In many small islands, isles and islets prehistoric communities relied heavily on the exploitation of coastal resources, resulting in a coastal subsistence focus and a large number of coastal sites. This has several interesting implications. We will focus on two major topics that are largely methods and approaches based.
1) Today, small islands are often perceived as remote, isolated locations. This has caused research biases favouring less ‘remote’ locations, as well as site functions erroneously being interpreted. The richness of the archaeological record in small island coastal settings, however, demonstrates that our current perceptions of what is remote, marginal, isolated or uninhabitable, do not mirror prehistoric perceptions. How far-reaching are these biases, and how can we challenge or combat them?
2) Coastal processes, accelerated by climate change, also endanger site survival. Therefore, protection of exposed cultural heritage is needed, and mapping and rescue excavations are urgent, although often complicated by limited resources and limited accessibility of terrains. Another complication of this site survival issue is that we do not really know what prehistoric settlement locations and settlement patterns looked like. It is essential to establish what (and how much) information we miss when it comes to coastal prehistoric, occupation. How can we fill in the blanks?
This session crosses disciplinary, chronological and geographical boundaries (not limited to Europe) to generate synergizing discussions on the above-mentioned particularities of investigating small island coastal landscapes. We welcome contributions dealing with practical archaeology research aspects relating to above-mentioned topics, as well as experiential, reflective presentations.
Keywords:
Small islands, coastal archaeology, prehistory, coastal processes, remoteness, site survival
Session associated with MERC:
no
Session associated with CIfA:
no
Session associated with SAfA:
no
Session associated with CAA:
no
Session associated with DGUF:
no
Session associated with other:

Organisers

Main organiser:
Maaike de Waal (Netherlands) 1
Co-organisers:
Emily Gal (United Kingdom) 2
Rebecca Rennell (United Kingdom) 2
Affiliations:
1. Field Research Education Centre, Faculty of Archaeology, Leiden University
2. Archaeology Institute, University of the Highlands and Islands