{"id":185,"date":"2019-09-04T18:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-09-04T18:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/open-past.org\/incascot\/?post_type=events&p=185"},"modified":"2024-10-31T11:34:35","modified_gmt":"2024-10-31T11:34:35","slug":"orkney-meeting-2-4th-september-2019","status":"publish","type":"events","link":"https:\/\/scarf.scot\/incascot\/events\/orkney-meeting-2-4th-september-2019\/","title":{"rendered":"Orkney Meeting"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Historically, politically and geographically, Orkney is unique within Scotland. The islands are perhaps best known for their prehistoric archaeology, including the monuments within the Heart of Neolithic Orkney World Heritage Site <\/em>(listed 1999), and heritage is a major driver for tourism. In 2019, there were 170 cruise ship port calls, and over 200,000 visitors. This tourism is a major part of the economy behind farming, but the footfall is causing severe erosion at some archaeological sites.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many Orcadians feel a strong connection with archaeology and history and see it as an important part of their identity, but Orkney is a place as much aware of its contemporary identity, and its future direction, as it is of its ancient history. It has long drawn travellers and artists, and the county has a thriving contemporary art scene, much of which is focused around the Pier Arts Centre in Stromness, and its extraordinary permanent collection of 20th<\/sup>-century British Modernist art. Orkney is also a world leader in renewable energy innovation, and the islands\u2019 hills and seas are now home to large wind turbines and marine renewable devices: contemporary archaeological monuments that evidence a new relationship with the environment in a post-oil age. These developments have made Orkney a lively melting pot of scientists, artists and academics, many of whom work together on interdisciplinary creative and intellectual projects (Thomas 2019, 30). Many of these focus around issues relating to climate change and sustainability, as the islands face the threat of increased storminess and rising sea levels more acutely than many other areas of Scotland.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a result, Art and Archaeology<\/em>, Contemporary Archaeology,<\/em> and Climate Change and Sustainability<\/em>, are key themes within the Scotland\u2019s Islands Research Framework for Archaeology (SIRFA), a four-year project which will deliver one of the Regional Research Frameworks for Scotland and outlined in section 2.1 of the delivery plan for Scotland\u2019s Archaeology Strategy. The discussions initiated at the 3M_DO meeting in September 2019 will feed into this framework.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Orkney Meeting<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The Orkney meeting was third of the RSE-funded knowledge sharing activities in 2019 (2-4th September), following the Glasgow and Aberdeen meetings. #3M_DO_2019 aimed to contribute valuable archaeological perspectives to the political, economic and environmental challenges facing Scotland in the present day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The two research questions running through all of the 2019 workshops were:<\/p>\n\n\n\n