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Searching For Stones- Another Summer of Archaeology

 Searching for stones is definitely a good way to describe my summer.

I have been incredibly lucky this year to have had the opportunity to go to the west coast of Scotland three times over my summer. The first was a lovely family holiday, which included getting lost in a bog looking for the remains of an old clachan (pre-clearance township), and just making it to Iona to see the famous abbey before the ferry was stopped for the only day we were on Mull!

Later in the summer, I had the privilege of attending a 'String Ceilidh' on Skye, which was an amazing way to meet the local community that exists beyond the tourist sites and shops. This evening of insights into people's deep lived experience and connection to the and they called home as well as talks by prominent textile archaeologists is one I will not soon forget! Whilst on Skye I also had the chance to visit the Museum of Island Life, which gave a fascinating window into the life of island crofters over the last couple of centuries (and further fuelled my wish to one day learn Scottish Gaelic) and I managed to get lost on the way back to the BnB looking for a Pictish cross.

The third trip to Scotland was by far the biggest, my university fieldwork on the Ardnamurchan peninsula. Most undergraduate archaeology students in the UK have to undertake fieldwork, and this is often facilitated by the university teaching your degree. I had based quite a lot of my decision to come to the University of Manchester based on a talk about this project at an open data. This was an absolutely amazing project and I have made some wonderful friends and memories. Due to the acidic nature of the soil on site, most of our artefacts were stone, and so once again I was looking for interesting stones in Scotland.

Alongside this I have been making a start on research for my dissertation which is on a topic that in many ways is about as removed from stone as you can get, textiles. And yet, given organics are probably the most illusive type of finds recovered in archaeology (I make good life choices...) stones can crop up even here, as loom weights, spindle whorls and a variety of other tools that are often our best insight into the production methods for textiles in the past. 

I have also been incredibly fortunate to spend much of my summer enjoying the countryside surrounded by greenery, ahead of going back to metapolitican Manchester for the next semester. I have visited castles, catherdals and counted court with some rather ancient trees. I've got lost down sides streets and met up with some amazing friends. University is a great experience, but home is still very precious to me and I am so grateful for the chances to connect to my corner of the world.

Thank you for reading, leave a comment about what you have been up to this summer!


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