Rosie BishopUniversity of Stavanger (UiS) · Museum of Archaeology
Rosie Bishop
BSc MA FSA Scot PhD
About
27
Publications
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274
Citations
Introduction
Additional affiliations
August 2020 - present
March 2019 - June 2020
September 2016 - February 2019
Education
March 2009 - February 2013
Publications
Publications (27)
Carbohydrate consumption in hunter-gatherer societies has been much debated, with dietary estimates from studies of modern hunter-gatherers used as a reference standard for modern human nutrition. However, relatively little is known about the role of carbohydrates in past hunter-gatherer diets in temperate Europe because farming has been the main m...
In the 12,000 years preceding the Industrial Revolution, human activities led to significant changes in land cover, plant and animal distributions, surface hydrology, and biochemical cycles. Earth system models suggest that this anthropogenic land cover change influenced regional and global climate. However, the representation of past land use in e...
In this contribution we review previous understandings of the earliest farming in Britain, and then bring together various recent lines of evidence. We will argue that new findings go some considerable way towards resolving the debates of previous decades, and allow us to come to a firmer view of the earliest farming than has hitherto been possible...
Part of the session: Upscaling palaeoecological, archaeological and historical records of land-use and land-cover change 1. Chair Marie-Jose Gaillard.
Presentation abstact :The PAGES LandCover6K group is concerned with whether prehistoric human impacts on land cover were sufficiently large to have had a major impact on regional and global climate...
Hazel (Corylus avellana L.) nutshell is one of the most frequent wild food remains recovered from sites of pre- historic date in temperate Europe and hazelnuts are often suggested to have been a staple food in early pre- history. Many authors have proposed that hazel nutshell may be over-represented in archaeological assemblages relative to other w...
The LandCover6K group is concerned with whether prehistoric human impacts on land cover were sufficiently large to have had a major impact on regional climates. Climate model simulations have shown that land use data sets can have large regional impacts on climate in the recent past and may have also done so during prehistory. However, there are ma...
![Fig. 3. (a) The late Neolithic wood layer [3], after the removal of the...](publication/328030440/figure/fig3/AS:677350559727618@1538504366553/a-The-late-Neolithic-wood-layer-3-after-the-removal-of-the-layer-of-peat-containing_Q320.jpg)
This paper considers the timing and mechanisms of deforestation in the Western Isles of Scotland, focusing in particular on the landscape around the Calanais stone circles, one of the best preserved late Neolithic/early Bronze Age monumental landscapes in north-west Europe. We present new archaeological and palaeoenvironmental evidence from a soil...
This paper presents the results of a palaeoenvironmental investigation of riverine deposits containing charred heathland plant material, recovered during an archaeological survey of Gleann Mor Barabhais, Lewis, Western Isles of Scotland. This survey was conducted to identify Mesolithic occupation in the interior of the island and was undertaken as...
The LandCover6K Working group is concerned with the question of whether prehistoric human impacts on land cover (i.e. anthropogenic land cover change due to land use) were sufficiently large to have had a major impact on regional climates. Climate model simulations have shown that land use data sets can have large regional impacts on climate in the...
In response to the critique in this volume (Bishop 2015), Stevens and Fuller (2015) have modified their
original interpretation of Late Neolithic subsistence strategies in the British Isles (Stevens and Fuller 2012).
This article highlights the key issues that remain with their analysis. It is reiterated that radiocarbon
summed probability distribu...
This paper critically assesses the recent claim (Stevens and Fuller 2012) that cereal agriculture was abandoned in the Late Neolithic of the British Isles. The Scottish archaeobotanical dataset is considered in detail to test the universal applicability of the model proposed by Stevens and Fuller (2012) and a series of alternative hypotheses are su...
Over the past few decades the potential role of Mesolithic hunter-gatherers in actively constructing their own niches, through the management of wild plants, has frequently been discussed. It is probable that Mesolithic hunter-gatherers systematically exploited specific woodland resources for food and fuel and influenced the 'natural' abundance or...
It is often assumed that the colonisation of Greenland by Norse settlers in c. A.D. 985 had a sudden and dramatic effect on the environment, involving substantial vegetation clearance and environmental degradation. Consequently, it has been argued that charcoal-rich horizons, visible in many sections in Greenland, represent the initial burning of t...
Over the past few decades, the potential importance of plants within European Mesolithic
economies has frequently been discussed, but there has been little systematic consideration of the
archaeobotanical evidence for Mesolithic plant consumption in Scotland. This paper assesses the
use of plants in the Scottish Mesolithic economy using the archaeo...
In September 2011, a detailed environmental sampling programme of the Mesolithic buried land surface at Northton was implemented. Previous fieldwork at the site in 2001 had revealed the first radiocarbon-dated Mesolithic deposits in the Western Isles eroding at the base of machair beneath the later Neolithic and Beaker settlement (Gregory et al 200...
This paper reports on the 2008 excavations at Duddo Stone Circle, Northumberland; the first excavation of a stone circle in the north-east of England under modern conditions. The project was successful in radiocarbon dating archaeobotanical material that suggests a date for construction at the beginning of the Early Bronze Age, and cremated human b...
A Mesolithic human presence in the Outer Hebrides has long been postulated by palynologists but archaeological evidence for this period has, until recently, eluded discovery by archaeologists. The discovery of the first radiocarbon-dated Mesolithic deposits in the Western Isles at Northton, Harris in 2001 was therefore of considerable international...
The importance of wild and domestic plants within British Neolithic economies has been much disputed but the contribution of the Scottish archaeobotanical evidence has previously been understated. This paper assesses the use of plants in the Scottish Neolithic economy using the archaeobotanical evidence from 75 sites. It is argued that plant exploi...
Projects
Projects (3)
The project “European Land-use at 6000BP: from on-site data to the large-scale view” is part of the PAGES Past Global Changes work group “Global Land-Use and Land-Cover for Climate Modelling – LandCover6k” and focuses on the reconstruction of land-use using archaeological data. The LandCover6K work group is concerned with whether prehistoric human impacts on land cover, i.e. anthropogenic land cover change due to land use (LULC), were sufficiently large to have a major impact on regional climates. Climate model simulations have shown that LULC data sets can have large regional impacts on climate in recent and prehistoric time. However, there are major differences between the available LULC scenarios/data sets, e.g. HYDE and KK10. The only way to provide a useful assessment of the potential for LULC changes to affect climate in the past is to feed HYDE with more realistic LULC changes based on palaeovegetation (LC) and archaeological evidence (LU). As part of this goal of the LandCover6k work group, “European Land-use at 6000BP” focuses on the reconstruction of land-use by synthesizing LU patterns derived from the archaeological record, particularly farming and landscape management strategies and intensity for 6K BP. We are also interested in the location of settlements, field systems, and industrial activities.
The project has two primary goals: (i) translate the global LU categorization product, which is a world-wide hierarchical, scalable land classification system developed from LandCover6K’s first phase, into a European context; (ii) map LU from the volume of archaeological data for 6K and derive expert-based estimates of LU intensity. The project aims to accomplish these goals by bringing together experts in plant and animal husbandry around 6000 BP. The project is both feasible and timely and relevant: while several collaborative projects have synthesized regional data sets that could be used to address LU, these data sets have never been summarized at a European level.
Links:
http://pastglobalchanges.org/ini/wg/landcover6k/intro
https://mesoneoseedsofchange.wordpress.com
