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

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 today

This 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.