There has been quite the gap since my last post, I promise not to make a habit out of this, until the past month, not much of significance had occurred for me to report on. At this early stage, undertaking a PhD is significantly more sedate than I anticipated, though I am convinced this ‘calm before the storm’ will not last, so it is with a constant sense of foreboding that I continue now to write. In reality, the month of December was spent in absentia from work as is quite traditional, although not from all work as I completed minor corrections on my MRes Thesis for Durham University. This work merged partially into January of course, and I otherwise simply continued the process of reading. There is some general agreement that it is through reading mostly that an individual can become an expert in a topic, so that is my new designated goal.
As promised, a brief update on the AEA Conference (2-4th December 2022), although this was quite a time ago now, the programme of talks was diverse and engaging enough to remain fixed in my memory, I also have the resource of copious notes I made. The first evening of the conference was themed around alternative methodologies for communicating archaeological topics, this had less engagement than later sessions though that may have been due to it taking place on the Friday when most were travelling. From my perspective, the inclusivity resonating through this session was inspiring, the talk given by Dr A. Flint ‘Poetic Inquiry and Landscape Heritage Research’, highlighted some interesting aspect in terms of how communities interact with environments and experience ‘presence’ within a heritage landscape, further to this how language shapes responses to both physical environments and our research outputs. This has further interrogated for me the process of producing research, and what can truly be meant by a research output. More and more we should be embracing alternative ways of seeing research and being researchers, only in this way can we truly claim inclusivity. Dr A. Flint also introduced me to the Consilience Journal, which explores the sciences through creative expression, this is a medium/output that I am considering further engagement with. The talks on, technically, Day 2 were equally intriguing and overall thought provoking both in terms of re-examination of theory and introduction of newer scientific techniques. The University of Aberdeen’s own Annabel Everard presented ‘People and Scotland’s Ancient Woodlands: Palaeoecological Insights into Woodland Dynamics and their Drivers’, this was a refreshing interpretive perspective which did not originate from archaeological theory and drove consideration in terms of natural woodland processes and influences. This has provoked wider consideration in terms of my own projected interpretations of data, to what extent am I limited through my experience and expertise, how can I maintain consideration outside the archaeological interpretation which may be obvious to me. I suspect this is something I will have to continuously engage with and remain interrogative of my reasoning, which I suppose is something I consider to be ‘best practice’ in any case. As this is only supposed to be a brief summary, I will now note the exemplary content of Day 3 of the AEA Conference, although I could mention significantly more in regard to the previous days. This, Day 3 of the AEA Conference, was particularly enlightening, applicable and useful in terms of my own research trajectory. The talks given by Dr. M. Given ‘Places, Partnerships and Ecologies of Care: Landscape Relations in Post-Medieval Greaulin, Trotternish, Skye’ and Dr. A. Cooper and T. Roushannafas ‘‘Rewilding’ Later Prehistory: What can Archaeological Wildlife Tell Us About Human-Landscape Relations Now and in the Past?’ have fundamentally shifted my consideration of the quality of human-environment interactions in the Late Glacial and Prehistory. Further from considerations of resource use and exploitation of environmental qualities, now I consider interactions to have more significant depth and consideration, even ‘management’ seems too inflexible a terminology now. Instead ‘Ecologies of Care’ seems more appropriate with the depth of ecological partnerships, engagement and relational biographies this implies. For so long, I have been thinking far too simplistically it seems. Further to this the fundaments and nature of the ‘wild’ is widely neglected in archaeology for a determinative focus on the processes of domestication. I hope to follow the example of Dr. A. Cooper and T. Roushannafas in this respect and in the third aspect of my own research project focus on the ‘wild’ reindeer and create a novel holistic account of this herd ecology. There was also, on this Day 3, a rather fortuitously useful account of the Multiple Scenario Approach to palynological modelling by Thya Van Den Berg (University of Hull) which has cemented for me the importance of engaging with this methodology progressing forward. I also attended the AEA Conference fieldtrip to Kilmartin Glen on the 5th December, which was brilliant fun and highlighted a number of new Prehistoric monuments to me and a landscape I had only previously engaged with in regard to the wonderful book by Prof A. Jones ‘An Animate Landscape: Rock Art and the Prehistory of Kilmartin, Argyll, Scotland’.
In other news, I have been keeping myself engaged and busy, there was a call out on the PGR Community Teams site for individuals willing to join a working group to engage with planning towards improving the University of Aberdeen ‘Research Culture’. I am unsure how much I am able to expand on this currently as the process in ongoing, but I am one of two selected PGR Representatives within the group. Whilst I won’t currently comment on the workings of the group itself, I will comment on why I believed my engagement to be important. I am very glad to be a contributing member to the University of Aberdeen team, and although I have only been here a comparatively short period so far, I have been observant to how this new working environment functions and the methodologies of engagement that exist within it. There is a great diversity within the University of Aberdeen in regard to the nature, extent, accessibility and focus of research culture, in fact, it is difficult to consider a wider research culture here, instead there seems to be extant a system of pockets of engaged research cultures all functioning independently. Because of this there are unfair disparities and if you were to do a random interview survey across the University, as to what individual researchers’ engagement with research culture amounted too or indeed what research culture actually meant to them, all answers would be different and some perhaps would be disheartening. It is difficult to build an active network of functioning researchers and research projects when there is no wider institutional link and responsibility towards building and maintaining agreed principles of ‘Research Culture’. Put simply however, it comes down to this, I want to be a part of this academic community now and into my future, in this respect ‘I’ have a responsibility to engage and move to make better the mechanisms this community relies on, it is also a privilege to be a proactive participant. Hopefully, down the line, I will be able to discuss this process and its outcomes in more detail.
In other aspects of ‘engaged and busy’ I have taken it upon myself to organise a bid/application to hold the PGR Progressive Palaeontology Conference for 2024 at the University of Aberdeen, this is organised through The Palaeontological Association, the deadline for the rather short and succinct application is the 1st July. That means there is currently plenty of time to get organised, and currently I am engaged with recruiting the necessary PGR Committee Members, my hope is that these will not only be archaeologists, I have big plans to get representatives from the whole of Geosciences involved perhaps even nab some Biosciences. The application requires I set out a basic plan for the Conference, including details of venue, a fieldtrip, staff supervision, transport, accessibility, accommodation, events, funding, etc. So, in reality, whatever the outcome, this will be valuable experience for myself and the other Committee members once I have recruited them. More details on this will certainly follow as the application process progresses.
Unfortunately, much of my February was monopolised through compulsory QUADRAT DTP Training, not that the CMI Management modules were not useful, they were, its just that currently actual research news seems rather lacking. The CMI Management course is accredited and as such we had to produce a 1500-word report for submission, this doesn’t seem very time-involved or extensive until the number of tables and figures required is considered which is substantial. At least a week of work went into my CMI Report independent of the training dates/times. This has resulted in a high-definition research progression plan which will ultimately be useful to my PhD research project, it has for example necessitated in my clarifying a timeline and project management strategy. This is something I may not have necessarily considered or prevaricated over engaging with otherwise. There is such a thing as too much engagement with a task however and this may have been my fault here, I am over the word count and thus will probably receive the report back with this amendment suggested. Another aspect this CMI Report highlighted to me which otherwise I would not have considered, but is valuable to my research in hindsight is a definition of the success factors associated with the project, how will I ultimately measure the success of this PhD research, this I have assessed as follows:
1) To develop new, original research which makes a significant contribution to extant discourse, with real potential for applicability cross disciplines, outside temporal constraints and with potential ‘real world’ influence.
2) To maintain project ideals of Open Science, use the Pre-History Project as an opportunity to model principles of accessibility in all aspects.
3) To engage with research outside academia, introduce the Pre-History Project research to wider, non-specialist audiences and model principles of success through schemes of public engagement.
4) To engage interdisciplinary within the Pre-History Project remit but also regarding continuing professional development and collaboratively in terms of developing a research community network.
5) To complete the Pre-History Project within the predefined budget and a timeline of 42 months, demonstrating effective project management and maintaining researcher wellbeing.
This CMI Report also means I can share the current projected timeline divided into tasks in a Gantt Chart format, though this is necessarily flexible due to the fundamental nature of research.
Going forward I believe this process of reading is now never ending, although the next meeting with my supervisor seems to promise engagement with raw data not too far into the future, so watch this space!
Signing off,
Leia Tilley