Research Overview

Early medieval period in: Scandinavia, NW Siberia, the United Kingdom, Ireland, the Isle of Man, and the North Atlantic region, including Scotland, Iceland, the Faroe Islands, Greenland, and Atlantic Canada.

19th and early 20th century in: Scotland, the North Atlantic region, and Canada.

Research methods and methodological development in: excavation; geoarchaeology, including soil survey, soil and sediment chemistry, organic matter, magnetism, and micromorphology (thin section analysis); ground-truthing multi-spectral satellite imagery; GIS; microrefuse analysis; space syntax analysis.

Research themes (cross-cutting the period and regional research interests listed above): human-environment-animal interactions; archaeological site formation processes and the interpretation of activity areas; social archaeology of houses, farmsteads, and transhumant/nomadic pastoralist sites; migrations and invasions and relationships between incomers and indigenous peoples; the impacts of culture contact on material culture, especially residential architecture and objects used in everyday life; gender archaeology, especially gendered work and activity areas; ethno- and ethno-historic archaeology, especially to help develop new methodologies for the interpretation of activity areas; experimental archaeology, especially reconstructed houses.

Current Research

JPI Climate HUMANOR Project: Social-Ecological Transformations: HUMan-ANimal Relations under Climate Change in NORthern Eurasia. I am co-investigator on this ESRC-funded project, which involves fieldwork in Siberia (2015) and northern Sweden (2016), the supervision of a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow, Loïc Harrault, who is developing new applications for lipid biomarkers in archaeology, and the supervision of a Geoarchaeology Laboratory Assistant, who is helping to process hundreds of samples.

Collaborations

Within the School of Geosciences:

• Dr Gordon Noble: Co-PI on the Pathways to Power Project: The Rise of the Early Medieval Kingdoms of the North; geoarchaeological contributions to the Northern Picts and Sands of Forvie Projects
• Dr Jeff Oliver: Co-investigator on the Bennachie Landscapes Project
• Dr Kate Britton: Oxygen isotope climate proxy development using phosphates in reindeer mandibles collected from the Yamal Peninsula, NW Siberia
• Dr Ed Schofield: Co-investigator on the FAR North Project: Fragility, Adaptation and Resilience to Climate Change in the North

Cross-College:

• Prof David Anderson, Department of Anthropology: Co-investigator on the HUMANOR Project: Social-Ecological Transformations: Human-Animal Relations under Climate Change in Northern Eurasia; affiliated researcher on the Arctic Domus Project
• Prof Stefan Brink, Scandinavian Studies: Co-PI on the Pathways to Power Project: The Rise of the Early Medieval Kingdoms of the North

External:

• Prof Bruce Forbes, Arctic Centre, University of Lapland: Co-investigator on the HUMANOR Project: Social-Ecological Transformations: Human-Animal Relations under Climate Change in Northern Eurasia
• Institute of Archaeology, Iceland (Fornleifastofnun Íslands): Numerous collaborations, but most importantly on the Vatnsfjörður Project
• Prof Niall Sharples, University of Cardiff: Geoarchaeological contributions to the Bornais Project (South Uist, Western Isles)
• Prof Sarah Parcak and Prof Greg Mumford, University of Alabama at Birmingham: Ground-truthing satellite remote sensing imagery at Point Rosee, Newfoundland
• Prof Jesse Byock, UCLA, and Dr Davide Zori, Baylor University: Geoarchaeological contributions to the Hrísbrú Project, Iceland
• Prof Orri Vésteinsson, University of Iceland: Geoarchaeological contributions to the Sveigakot Project, Iceland

Research Funding and Grants

Current Project Grants

2015-2018    ESRC JPI Climate Grant for the HUMANOR Project: Social-Ecological Transformations: HUMan-ANimal Relations under Climate Change in NORthern Eurasia

(Co-investigator; total budget £398,472 over four years)

Funded through the JPI Climate initiative, HUMANOR is a transdisciplinary, international project investigating climatic and non-climatic drivers affecting human-animal relations in northern indigenous social-ecological systems over timescales of tens and hundreds of years. With field projects in northern Sweden and the Yamal peninsula (northwestern Siberia), the Aberdeen team is contributing palaeo-ecological evidence that is vital to the overall goal of the project: to better understand the livelihoods of contemporary Sámi and Nenets and their potential resilience or vulnerability to future climate change by detailing their historical trajectories. Read more...

2015-2018   Faroese Research Council grant for the project Burials and Landscape in the Faroe Islands during the Viking Age

(PI; total budget £120,000 over three years)

Grant held for PhD student Ann Sølvia Jacobsen, who is conducting a landscape archaeology project aimed at better understanding the locations and character of Viking Age burials in the Faroe Islands. So far only two Viking Age cemeteries have been found in the Faroe Islands, and the project involves re-analysing these known burial sites, conducting archival and oral history research, aerial photograph and satellite imagery reconnaisance work, field surveys and geophysical surveys in order to locate new burial sites. The project is testing different models for locating Viking Age burials, and is comparing the landscape context of Norwegian, Faroes, Icelandic, and Scottish Viking Age burials in order to improve our understanding of how the Norse perceived and viewed the colonial landscapes in which they settled.

Past Project Grants

2012-2015   University of Aberdeen North Theme Grant for the project Pathways to Power: The Rise of the Early Medieval Kingdoms of the North

(Co-PI; total budget £576,568 over three years)

This interdisciplinary project integrates archaeology, palaeoenvironmental studies, and medieval literature studies to investigate how the early kingdoms of northern Europe emerged, and the influences new lifeways, relations with the land and literary cultures had on this watershed period of transformation in the north. The archaeological component of this project, undertaken by Post-Doctoral Research Fellow Dr Jan-Henrik Fallgren alongside Karen Milek's and Gordon Nobles' ongoing research in Iceland and Scotland, is a comparative study of how power was physically manifest in the landscapes of Scotland, Ireland, Scandinavia and Iceland during the early medieval period. Read more...

This project culminated in interdisciplinary conference sessions in 2015: 'Pathways to Power in Early Medieval Northern Europe (double session)' at the 50th International Congress on Medieval Studies at Kalamazoo, Michigan, and 'Pathways to Power in Iron Age/Early Medieval Northern Europe' at the Annual Meeting of the European Association of Archaeologists in Glasgow.

See a recording of Karen's EAA conference paper, 'Landscape Agency and the Materialisation of Power in Viking Age Iceland'.

2012-2015   University of Aberdeen North Theme Grant for the FAR North Project: Fragility, Adaptation and Resilience to Climate Change in the North

(Co-investigator; total budget £591,297 over three years)

This interdiciplinary project examines the fragility, resilience and adaptation of high-latitude communities and ecosystems to the effects of climate change. Underpinned by new analysis of past, present and future climate changes across the high latitudes of the northern hemisphere, the project investigates ecological and societal impacts of climate changes through studies of biodiversity and ecosystem functioning. The archaeological component of this project, undertaken by PhD student Lukasz Mikolajczyk, focusses on coastal activity zones in the North Atlantic region. Over the last three years this PhD project has evolved into a methodological study of how cutting-edge geoarchaeological techniques can enable archaeologists to date and assess the character of coastal activity areas and their relationship to changing sea-levels. Read more...

2013-14   AHRC Research Development Grant for the project Bennachie Landscapes: Investigating Communities Past and Present at the Colony Site  

(Co-investigator; total budget £79,729 over two years)

A collaborative venture between the community group the Bailies of Bennachie and the University of Aberdeen, this project investigates past and present community relationships with land, resources and wider societal changes in one of north-east Scotland's most celebrated landscapes: the hill of Bennachie and its environs. Research focuses on the archaeology and history of the 19th-century ‘colony’ – celebrated in the north-east for having been a site of tension between crofter-colonists and neighbouring landowners. Alongside excavations at numerous squaters' farmsteads, the soils within and without the associated fields are being mapped and analysed (and some surprise field drains discovered along the way) in order to better understand how the colonists gained knowledge about and improved the soil resources on the hill. Read more...

2013-2014   Society for Post-Medieval Archaeology Research Grant for the project Geoarchaeological Approaches to the Age of Improvement: Living Conditions in Turf Houses in 18th and 19th century Iceland

(PI; total budget £800 over one year)

A small grant to cover the cost of manufacturing sediment thin sections from floor deposits in two 18th- and 19th-century turf houses, one a relatively wealthy farm (Vatnsfjörður, NW Iceland), and the other a relatively poor one (Hornbrekka, N Iceland). Soil micromorphological analysis is being conducted in order to assess the microscopic composition of the floor deposits, and to provide new insights into the living conditions, cleaning and floor maintenance practices at these two sites.

2011-2014   Research Grants from the University of Iceland for Geoarchaeological Analyses for the Sveigakot Project, Iceland

(PI; total budget £4,189 over three years)

Two small grants from Prof Orri Vésteinsson at the University of Iceland to cover the costs of the manufacture and analysis of thin sections and the analysis of soil chemistry samples from occupation deposits at the Viking Age farmstead of Sveigakot, N Iceland. Analysis of these samples is providing evidence about living conditions, the functions of buildings, and the organisation and use of space within Viking Age buildings.

2013  Research grant from Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland for the project Harbours and Boat Havens in Viking Age and Medieval Iceland: A Pilot Study of Archaeological Potential

(PI; total budget £2,500 over one year)

A small grant to cover the cost of travel for fieldwork on the coastline of Vatnsfjörður, NW Iceland.

2013   Research Grant from the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland for the project Transhumance and Norse Colonisation in the North Atlantic: A Micromorphological Approach

(PI; total budget £2,480 over one year)

A small grant held for PhD student Patrycja Kupiec, a Carnegie Scholar, to support our fieldwork in the Outer Hebrides to collect micromorphology samples for her PhD.

2013   Research Grant from the Medieval Settlement Research Group for the Survey of Putative Pictish or Norse Shielings in the Outer Hebrides

(PI; total budget £500 over one year)

Small grant held for PhD student Patrycja Kupiec to cover the cost of our fieldwork in the Western Isles to survey and assess the potential of a number of putative shieling sites.

2013   Principal's Interdisciplinary Award

(PI; total budget £3,000 over one year)

A small grant to fund a two-day interdisciplinary workshop at the University of Aberdeen on 'Inscribing Environmental Memory in the Icelandic Sagas: Science Meets Literature'.

2012-2013   Research Grant from the Royal Society of Edinburgh for the project Material Culture and Power Polics in Viking Age Iceland

(PI; total budget £7,500 over two years)

Grant to support the post-excavation analysis, photography, and illustration of the Viking Age artefacts from the site of Vatnsfjörður, NW Iceland.

2011-2012  Research Grants from the University of Cardiff for Geoarchaeological Analyses for the Bornais Project, Western Isles

(PI; total budget £5,085 over two years)

Two small grants from Prof Niall Sharples at the University of Cardiff to cover the costs of the manufacture and analysis of thin sections from occupation deposits in Pictish and Viking Period buildings at the site of Bornais, South Uist, Western Isles of Scotland. Analysis of these samples is providing evidence about living conditions, the functions of buildings, and the organisation and use of space within buildings.

2011    Research grant from the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland for the project Boat Shelters in Viking Age and Medieval Iceland: A Pilot Study of Archaeological Potential

(PI; total budget £2,200 over one year)

A small grant to cover the cost of travel for fieldwork on the coastline of Vatnsfjörður, NW Iceland.

2010-11    Caledonian Research Foundation/Royal Society of Edinburgh European Visiting Research Fellowship for the project Social Spaces and Social Structures in Viking Age Iceland

(PI; total budget £2,500 over two years)

A small grant to cover the cost of travel for fieldwork on the Viking Age farmstead of Vatnsfjörður, NW Iceland, including the excavation of a pit house.

2010    Royal Society of Edinburgh International Exchange Programme Grant

(PI; total budget £2,330 over one year)

Small grant for a bilateral exchange with Dr. Lenka Lisa, Institute of Geology at the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, to attend research meetings on a collaborative project on Slavic and Icelandic pit houses.

2009   Research Grant from the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland for the project Materiality of Mass Migration: Archaeology's Potential Contribution to the Study of European Emigration to Canada

(PI; total budget £2,500 over one year)

A small grant to cover the cost of travel for fieldwork on the Viking Age farmstead of Vatnsfjörður, NW Iceland, and the 19th-century farmstead of Hornbrekka, N Iceland.

2008  Research grant from the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland for the project Houses and Homefields in Viking Age Iceland: Characterising and Sourcing of Fertilizing Materials

(PI; total budget £2,500 over one year)

A small grant to cover the cost of travel for fieldwork on the Viking Age farmstead of Vatnsfjörður, NW Iceland, and the Viking Age farmstead of Hrísbrú, SW Iceland.