Gaining vital fieldwork experience: Professor Steven Driscoll
Issued: Fri, 21 Jun 2013 10:47:00 BST
For the last five years, a major focus of Professor Steven Driscoll’s research has been the Strathearn Environs and Royal Forteviot (SERF) project in Perthshire. Lying close to the site of a royal palace occupied by the Pictish kings, the area is also the location of one of the major prehistoric ritual sites in eastern Scotland and as such, occupies a special place in history. The SERF project seeks to explore these two chronologically separate but physically linked episodes of landscape use.
Professor Driscoll has long held an interest in the site: he originally came to Glasgow in 1989 to complete his PhD on this area under the late Professor Leslie Alcock. Inspiration for the SERF project came from an important collection of early mediaeval sculpture from the area and aerial photography that revealed crop marks indicating the presence of ditches and pits otherwise invisible to the eye.
The project relies upon a range of archaeology expertise at the universities of Glasgow and Aberdeen, as well as the input of historians and scientists, who help to analyse finds from the large prehistoric ritual complex that includes both ceremonial and burial monuments.
‘In one burial site we found a Bronze Age tomb that contained flowers placed as a tribute on a grave,’ explains Professor Driscoll. ‘These are the earliest flowers used as a tribute found anywhere in Britain, and we were only be able to identify them because of the paleobotanists who worked with us on the radiocarbon dating of samples. We also work closely with historians – although there’s not a lot of material from the ninth century, we’re interested in taking the story right through the Middle Ages.’
Professor Driscoll is keen to create opportunities for postgraduate students to participate in the SERF project and funding from Historic Scotland and other outside agencies enables him to add an extra dimension to their educational experience.
‘There’s a good interplay of expertise between our staff and our colleagues in Scottish History, Celtic and Gaelic,’ he says. ‘We do a lot of teaching together, and we have long and fruitful research collaborations. Glasgow is certainly the best place in Scotland, and possibly Britain, for early medieval studies.
‘The SERF project is a great opportunity for students to learn about working on a long-term research project and to gain some competence in fieldwork, which isn’t usually part of the postgraduate experience. It’s important in helping to prepare the student better for the real world and getting a job.’
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