Today’s blog just explores some of the things I do over the winter but am afraid I’m going to plug our conference again which supports the Church of Holy Rude on the 30th November at the Church itself!
oh and ps I’ve been nominated for a Stirling Business Award…in the Outstanding Contribution to the City Award…..thanks very much to my nominee and any support would be greatly appreciated! Vote here….
Fieldwork
So all year I’ve talked about the results of this project or that one, or about when it is and how you can get involved and of course that cycle ends roughly in November. In part this is because the weather is turning and its getting colder and wetter (yes we’ve all experienced a Scottish summer!) but in case you’ve forgotten here’s Stirling in August
but really its because I have to write up what I’ve dug and in turn start planning 2025.
Writing up
This can be like pulling teeth….and there are multiple stages…so all the objects I gather have to go to various specialists, all of whom have their own schedules and this can take months if not years. So I pull a rough precis together, this records what I did, when and why…the Data Structure Report and you’ve seen those before like this one from Kings Park. These have to be done ASAP so I can understand my notes…which are sometimes a bit confusing!
I then report the fieldwork once a year to the authorities and this appears in a journal called Discovery and Excavation in Scotland (ran by the excellent Archaeology Scotland) which really just flags that something has happened though sometimes the entries are longer…
Then I begin to plan the formal academic article and this can take years. I have just published a wee account of the Ford of Frew in the Proceedings of The Society of Antiquaries in Scotland that began in 2020 as a lock down canoe trip down the Forth and spent 18 months coming backwards and forwards between editors and referees!
Funding
And of course while all of you help me and I do most of this stuff in my own time I don’t expect favours from anyone, else though I do in fact get lots of them. So some funding comes from all of the very generous supporters of this blog, some from grant from bodies like the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland and some from local trusts, so Kippen Heritage and the local fund farm covers all costs from Keir Hill of Dasher and something similar happens in Fintry. You’ve also heard that Edinburgh University are helping at the cultivation terraces on Dumyat.
There are also a handful of grant giving bodies, the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland is the main, but the competition is fierce!
Publication
So once you have done the work, got the analysis and then written the report it needs to be published. This is part to guarantee distribution but also to ensure quality control…anyone can publish a blog these days (!) but what about quality control? So you need peer reviews and referees. And then sometime you need to pay a publication fee. Some journals will publish an article under 10,000 words for nothing (FNH), if its bigger sometimes you can get a book deal but most of the time you have to either pay to get it published (Balbithan) or put it behind a paywall (PSAS) or charge a lot for it….my first book was £30 and is now out of print and valued at up to £300. The only people making any money are the publishers.
Lectures
Of course formal publication is not the only way of disseminating information and this is also why I do so many books and lectures (just search murray cook archaeology on youtube ) and the articles in the Stirling Observer! And of course I also want to do interpretation boards and walks and the whole point is to engage you with your past and to bring visitors to Stirling to buy things and stay in hotels!
Permissions
Then of course it all begins again and you have to find the next site. Normally research is driven by a desk top review: you identify a problem and then target the sites to get an answer. I did this for years in East Lothian and Aberdeenshire. But landowners don’t always want to let you dig on their land and sometimes you don’t even know who to ask. So I now tend to find landowners and local people who are interested and see what’s on their land…there is so much in Stirling its easy to find something I’m interested.
I tend to spend at least a year working out who they are and making sure I understand their concerns. Then I always start small and make sure they haven't some how got the wrong end of the stick. I supply method statements, risk assessment and details of my insurance. And of course it all gets reinstated.
Once they’ve seen what we do and what’s involved I tend to ask for something a little bigger and then stick with the site for a few years. This makes it easier as I’m not re-negotiating permissions and I can begin to ask more ambitious questions.
Of course sometimes a site is Scheduled and then you’ve got to also ask Historic Environment Scotland….and that’s ever more paperwork!
Archiving
Of course when the fieldwork is done and the results written up and published I have to archive the paperwork and deposit the finds. All of my Stirling fieldwork ends up in Stirling Council archives and my finds should end up in the Smith via the Treasure Trove process for future researchers to have a looks at. This is essential and I am always going to the Smith to review older finds and date material…for example Fairy Knowe Broch. And of course curation and storage are not free…so The Smith needs your support too…..please pop round!
Have a question? Get in contact!
Conclusions….
I have had lecturers that described their research project as battles with death and I can see what they meant as I’m now starting to think of years and decades at particularly sites teasing out details in a slow deliberate manner…never biting off more than I can chew. But and I really do believe this…I’m happy to do it because archaeology is the most fun you can have with your trousers on! and I hope you will join us next year.
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Wow! Amazing work Murray. Well done and thank you.