Yes / It has been argued that no fishing occurred during the British Iron Age. However, sites in the Northern Isles have been producing large assemblages of small fish bones, complicating the picture. This project reconsiders this argument by investigating fish bone assemblages excavated from the site of Swandro on Rousay, Orkney. Multiple analytical methods were applied to the assemblages in order to determine the range of species present, the method of capture and treatment of the fish, and their influence on diet. Preliminary work consisted of identifying each individual bone to element and species. Due to the size of the average specimen, scanning electron microscopy was employed to examine samples for any indication of butchery, charring, or digestion. Light isotope analysis was also utilised to determine the effects of fish on the diets of the inhabitants of Iron Age Swandro. Results from these analytical approaches indicated the occurrence of low intensity fishing activity and consumption that had no significant effect on diet. However, intensification in fishing would begin to occur during the Later Iron Age, as evident by a shift in the composition of fish bone assemblages. This project can be considered a pilot study in the successful application of analytical methods to faunal assemblages in order to develop a more detailed interpretation of the environmental aspects of a site.

Orkney is currently home to over 400 wind turbines and a growing marine energy industry, developing cutting edge technology for what could be called a global energy transition. Situated off the north tip of the Scottish mainland, the archipelago is also home to a long-standing local population of just over 21,000 inhabitants. In fact, habitation in these islands stretches back over 5,000 years, a connection expressed by the local population. This thesis rests at the intersection of these two points of interest: energy and locality. Drawing from ethnographic fieldwork conducted between October 2013 and October 2014, this thesis analyses the communication of perceptions of renewable energy in the archipelago. It takes into consideration the specificity of one particular network of relations: the individuals employed or otherwise involved in the development and production of this energy while situating the specificity of these perceptions within the larger body of residents. Here, collective history, the importance of place, and maintenance of identity are intimately tied up in the range of perspectives present, as well as within the very promotion of the industry. The relationship between individual perception and collective affirmation, the existence of multiple spheres of realities, the simplification of realities in the communication meaning, and the relationship between nodes of interaction are all analysed. While far from a constantly discussed occurrence, the presence of renewable energy in Orkney has provided residents with a mobilising force, an impetus for discussions of the self, of identity and belonging, of the importance of place, and of the relationship between the past, present and future.

The novels of George Mackay Brown have often been read as upholding a traditional ideal of community as that which is singular and complete, a community which exists outside time and history. As this thesis will show, however, Brown emphasises themes of community, history and myth in his work not in order to validate them without reservation, but to question what use these ideas may have in contemporary life. By reading his novels in conjunction with the work of continental theorists ranging from Martin Heidegger to Jean-Luc Nancy, it becomes apparent that Brown critically explores a post-Kantian modernity in which metaphysical or faith-based foundations are no longer possible. Brown's greatest theme throughout his work is not only how community is built and maintained, but also how it is destroyed, and what life remains after that destruction. Brown continually problematises the idea of community in order to show both its relevance and impossibility in modern society. In separately regarding each of Brown's novels in length, this thesis will highlight the various approaches Brown takes to community: the potentially romantic view of community in Beside the Ocean of time; the centrality of sacrifice for the establishing of community in Magnus; and the interections between community and history in Time in a Red Coat, and Vinland. The thesis then turns directly to the question of the relation between individuals and community in Greenvoe, and ends with a discussion of the way in which Brown portrays his own relation to community in his nonfiction and autobiographical writings. Throughout the thesis, the prevailing notion of Brown as a parochial or naive writer will be continually questioned. In addition, by integrating a wide variety of continental theorists into a discussion of Brown's work, this thesis will explore new opportunities for the general study of contemporary Scottish fiction. By revealing Brown to be a more nuanced thinker of the relation between modernity and community than previous critics have allowed, this thesis will both offer a new perspective on Brown's novels and open new paths for the discussion of the role of community in modern literature.

This thesis focuses on the development of ceremonial landscapes of Neolithic and Bronze Age Scotland, along with exploring the concept of ceremonial complexes within Scotland by looking at the patterns of development and reuse of sites and locations of ceremonial and funerary monuments built during the Neolithic through the Bronze Age. In order to accomplish this, three major ceremonial landscapes within Scotland, the Fife, southern Perth and Kinross regions; the Kilmartin Valley; and the Orkney Islands, are used as case studies. This study was conducted using site reports from the various excavations within the three case study areas, as well as using environmental studies, land use and soil maps, and topographical maps in order to understand what motivated the Neolithic communities to construct their funeral and ceremonial monuments where they did, and why the Bronze Age people either continued to use these areas or abandon them. Further, the methods of using various maps, such as land use, soil, and topographical maps, in understanding the reasons prehistoric communities had for the placement of monuments within the landscape are assessed with a discussion of the differences and similarities in the location of earlier cursus monuments and later henges. Of the sites studied within the three case studies, the majority of the Neolithic sites were found to be located on or near good arable farming land, usually near either lochs/waterways or valleys, which would have been used as routeways for travel across the landscape. During the Bronze Age, the sites follow a similar pattern with many monuments placed on or near Neolithic sites; however, several monuments were built away from earlier ones and found to be constructed on land less suited to agriculture and marginal land. These findings are mirrored within the discussion of the cursus monuments and henges, with the Early Neolithic cursus monuments located along or near waterways on arable farming land, while the later henges sited away from the cursus monuments were built in marginal locations. The positioning of these monuments along such travel routes would have made these sites important markers in the landscape for the transportation of goods and people for trade, migration, and pilgrimage as well as establishing a claim of the surrounding land for the communities who built and used them.

Excavation of thirty skulls, twenty-eight cattle and two sheep from the foundation course of a Late Neolithic structure at Links of Noltland (LON), Structure 9, is the starting point for this thesis, which investigates the economic and socio-cultural relationships of cattle and other mammals on Orkney communities between 3000 and 2500 BC. The LON settlement was located on a machair plain in Westray, the most N-W island within the Orkney archipelago (HY 428 493). Male and female cattle skulls were inter-mixed within the LON foundation course so a “bull cult” is not represented. The sequence from living skulls to skulls “animating the building is (i) breed/acquire (ii) nurture (iii) cull/butcher (iv) consume (v) transform to object (vi) curate (vii) deposit. A skull deposit infilling an internal passageway from another LON, Structure 18, is compared and contrasted with the Structure 9 foundation deposit. Special treatment of cattle skulls from a wide range of European and Near-East sites is also reviewed to emphasise the widespread use of this symbol during the Neolithic period. Orkney was separated from mainland Scotland prior to the establishment of the LON settlement so consideration is given to modes of arrival for mammals and their impact on this depauperate archipelago. Cattle and sheep dominated the domestic mammal remains examined, pig and dog were rare and goat and horse absent. The most abundant non-domestic mammals were red deer and Orkney voles, but otters and sea mammals were also present in low numbers. Genetic studies indicate that one cattle skull carried genetic material from aurochs, wild cattle. To date there is sparse evidence of interbreeding between wild aurochs and Neolithic domesticated cattle in Europe and none in Britain. The alterative explanation that aurochs were already present on Orkney during the Neolithic is explored. Articulated red deer deposits from LON were also examined. Although previous publications explored the possibility that these deposits are “ritual” other possible explanations for these deposits are outlined. No parallels were noted between the cattle skull and articulated red deer deposits, but the importance of antler for practical and symbolic use in Neolithic Orkney may be under-estimated. Stature of cattle remained relatively stable during the Mid to Late Neolithic in Orkney but underwent diminution by the Iron Age. A similar, but less marked reduction was also noted for sheep, but red deer already had small stature compared with early Holocene mainland Scotland red deer. The thesis concludes that cattle, sheep and red deer were of fundamental importance to the Neolithic society of Orkney, providing surplus food, tools and possibly traction, to support an increasingly sophisticated Neolithic society undertaking construction of complex structures and monuments. In addition, cattle fulfilled an important role in their cultural and spiritual life.

By the re-evaluation of one specific artefact class - the Scottish examples of tanged points, the intrinsic qualities of this artefacts form, context and is use is employed to establish an enhanced sense of regional variability within early Scottish archaeology. A methodology for tanged point identification is determined and enacted to demonstrate that the existing examples of Scottish tanged points do not represent a single, coherent, tanged point tradition in this region. Variability is evident and can be translated, in terms of human behaviour, to suggest at least three separate antecedents to early activity in Scotland. Of specific focus is a hitherto unrecognized line of activity (or influence) during the Mesolithic - one originating from areas to the north/north-east of Scotland from the modern political construct of Scandinavia. In this spatial context, tanged point use extends into the Mesolithic, unlike counterparts in the northern territories of the European continent where tanged points are primarily discussed as late Palaeolithic, and to which Scottish tanged points have been traditionally compared. This 'northern' scenario thus provides an alternative reading of some examples of this material class in Scotland. The juxtaposition between marine and terrestrial lifestyles is key to this analysis. Acknowledging this in relation to a select sample of Scottish tanged points – those within the island context of Stronsay, a northern isle in the archipelago of Orkney, this specific set of tanged points is argued to comprise a new component within the tool kit of Mesolithic activity within this regionally specific context. The implications of this permits a more pluralised perspective of the nature and extents of early activity in Scotland, and a documents the significance of regional variability to understanding the range of potential influences, and identities, that may have enculturated the landscapes of Scotland during its earliest phases of prehistory.

For some time now, social scientists, literary critics and others who have examined socio-political developments characterised by intercultural interaction (e.g. colonialism or globalisation), have emphasised the creative, transformative and hybrid character of the space 'in-between' (e.g. Bhabha 1994; Young 1995). Even though 'hybridity discourses' have principally explored spheres of intercultural interaction in order to dismantle traditional binary oppositions used in colonial studies, or to describe the subtleties of our contemporary globalised environment, they have also raised awareness of the need to integrate such insights into accounts that explore and theorise a range of social phenomena (e.g. Nederveen Pieterse 2009). Whilst this integration has taken place in the wider context of the social sciences, scant attention has been given within the reflective arena of post-processualism to devising theoretical approaches which allow for analyses either of the space 'in-between' or the 'multivoicedness' (Bakhtin 1981) of material culture (for an exception see Fahlander 2007). This thesis seeks to define the theoretical as well as methodological strategies needed to incorporate the notion of 'hybridity' into the post-processual discourse. Although the effects of hybridity can take various forms (e.g. linguistics, culture, politics, religion) (Ashcroft et al. 1998), our possibilities for exploring this concept in archaeology amount to identifying the effects of hybridity on the realm of material culture. This research focuses on developing a theoretical and methodological approach that allows intercultural interaction to be examined through the identification of material patterning. To do so, the notion of 'diffusion' is reconsidered as an analytical concept in archaeology. This thesis then draws upon this approach to explore developments within the Orcadian Neolithic during the later fourth millennium BC. As a period of structural change in the islands, it has been the breeding ground for the development of various differing approaches to interpretation (e.g. Renfrew 1979b, Hodder 1982a; Sharples 1985). On this occasion, I will argue that this period represented a classic example of the formation of hybrid identities. Whilst a self-unified image of society was sought in these islands during this period, it is suggested that the cultural expressions used to depict identity reflected intercultural interaction with the Boyne Valley (Ireland).

Understanding fuel use is important in researching ancient communities. This project developed methods to identify archaeological fuel from midden, hearth, and ash samples using comparison to modern analogues. Modern analogue fuels were ashed at 2000C, 4000C, and 9000C then analysed with a suite of methods, the results were then used to inform the development of an approach for the identification of archaeological fuels. These methods were tested using samples from Ness of Brodgar, Knowe of Swandro, and Smerquoy/Muckquoy in Orkney. Magnetic susceptibility, scanning electron microscopy with energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, pH and Munsell colour assignment were chosen based upon previous archaeological, biofuel, and soil pollution research. The methodologies were refined with the analysis of ash from fuels including peat, seaweed, driftwood, willow, hazel, heather, grasses, cow dung, sheep dung, and bone. Modern analogue fuels at increasing temperatures showed an intensification in magnetism and alkalinity, and an alteration to mineral components during the chemical reaction of combustion that is indicative of fuel type and temperature. Principal components analysis confirmed matches between archaeological samples and modern ash, indicating a strong relationship between peat fuels and the archaeological samples. A correlation is also demonstrated between some of the archaeological samples and sheep dung, driftwood, willow, and animal bone. It is evident that each archaeological site has unique patterns of both fuel type and temperature. This shows that in the absence of abundant traditional wood fuel resources, the occupants of these sites used a combination of alternative fuels.

No / The agricultural ¿revolution¿ in Iron Age Orkney is the subject of Julie Bond¿s paper. Focusing on Pool in Sanday, she outlines the perceived changes in animal husbandry and cultivation over the lifetime of the settlement ¿ changes she describes as ¿innovations and intensification in the agricultural economy of Orkney before the arrival of the Vikings.¿ The apparent success of these Iron Age farming settlements may well be, she adds, the reason they may have been early targets for Scandinavian settlers.

The present work is the fruit of seven years' research into the history of the earldoms of Orkney and Caithness. No excuse of birth or long acquaintance with northern Scotland can be offered as a reason for the choice of this research topic. An intellectual explanation for the study of the history of these two earldoms in the Middle Ages is that a peculiar problem is provided by their political situation. They were divided between two kingdoms, and the earl of Orkney and Caithness owed dual allegiance, a position which became increasingly anomalous as the Middle Ages advanced. The problems which this situation posed for the earls provide an intellectual rationale for the study of these earldoms during this period. But this is an explanation which can only be offered now after several years' research work and an increasing understanding of northern history. The original reasons for the choice of topic were more empirical and dictated by circumstances and the limitations imposed by academic requirements.