The Historical Ecology of Lowland Hill-scapes: assessing the impact of post-Medieval settlement colonisation on relationships between humans, animals

该项目结合了基于科学和跨学科的方法，以更好地理解人类、动物和植物之间的关系，因为人类适应并殖民新的高地环境。苏格兰低地以其营养丰富的山谷和启蒙时代的农业进步而闻名。然而，低地也有大量的高地地区，包括沼地和泥炭沼泽。在18世纪和19世纪，丘陵和其他高地地区-低地的“剩余内部边界”-成为定居者殖民的焦点，贫困的“佃农殖民者”赞助定居点和非正式的“寮屋”殖民地（Oliver et al . 2016）。在这种背景下，低地山坡见证了从数千年的低强度迁移畜牧业到自给农业、畜牧业、泥炭开采和某些地方的资本主义农业的集约化转变。我们将分析后中世纪时期与低地丘陵殖民相关的文化和生态破坏的影响，并探讨潜在的人与环境关系。我们的问题包括：-在主要的佃农和寮屋殖民事件发生之前，山坡生态是什么样的？殖民者给山坡带来了什么变化（比如新的植物，灌木，树木）？-以及过去的生态影响如何塑造了今天的山区生态？这将通过追求一些互补的研究方向，结合自然科学、社会科学和人文科学的技术来实现。这些方法将用于探索人类殖民对高地地区的影响，并反过来了解这些相同的环境如何影响人类社会和文化。

This project combines science-based and interdisciplinary approaches to better understand the relationships between humans, animals and plants as humans appropriate and colonise new upland environments. The Lowlands of Scotland are best known for their nutrient rich valleys and Enlightenment-era agricultural improvements. However, the Lowlands also possess significant upland areas of moorland and peat bog. In the 18th and 19th centuries, hills and other upland areas - the Lowland's' remaining internal frontiers - became the focus of settler colonisation by impoverished 'crofter colonists' of both sponsored settlements and informal 'squatter' colonies (Oliver et al 2016). In this context, lowland hillsides witnessed an abrupt change from millennia of low intensity transhumant pastoralism to intensive areas of subsistence agriculture, herding, peatbog exploitation and, in some places, capitalist farming. We will analyse the effects of cultural and ecological disruptions associated with lowland hill colonisation in the post-medieval period and explore the underlying human-environmental relationships responsible. Our questions include:- What were hillside ecologies like prior to major episodes of crofter and squatter colonisation? - What changes did colonists bring to hillsides (e.g. new plants, shrubs, trees)?- And How have past ecological impacts shaped contemporary hill ecologies todayThis will be achieved through the pursuit of a number of complementary research strands, incorporating techniques from the natural sciences, social sciences and the humanities. These approaches will be employed to explore the impact of human colonisations on upland areas and - in turn - to understand how those same environments influenced human society and culture.