Tim C. Kinnaird

University of St Andrews · School of Earth and Environmental Science

A series of massive geophysical anomalies, located south of the Durrington Walls henge monument, were identified during fluxgate gradiometer survey undertaken by the Stonehenge Hidden Landscapes Project (SHLP). Initially interpreted as dewponds, these data have been re-evaluated, along with information on similar features revealed by archaeological...

Optically stimulated luminescence profiling and dating of earthworks: the creation and development of prehistoric field boundaries at Bosigran, Cornwall - Soetkin Vervust, Tim Kinnaird, Peter Herring, Sam Turner

The gravel-sand transition (GST) is commonly observed along rivers. It is characterized by an abrupt reduction in median grain size, from gravel- to sand-size sediment, and by a shift in sand transport mode from wash load–dominated to suspended bed material load. We documented changes in channel stability, suspended sediment concentration, flux, an...

Prior to the formation of the North Sea during the mid-Holocene, North-Western Europe was connected through the Doggerland landmass. Whilst it has been known for the past century that forests grew in Doggerland, it has not been clear how this environment compares to the surrounding European areas. Here, we reconstruct the palaeoecology of a river s...

International policies and guidelines often highlight the divide between ‘nature’ and ‘heritage’ in landscape management, and the weakness of monodisciplinary approaches. This study argues that historic agricultural practices have played a key role in shaping today’s landscapes, creating a heritage which affords opportunities for more sustainable l...

Agricultural terraces provide farmers in hilly landscapes with effective ways to increase the area available for crops. They mitigate the risks of soil erosion and promote crop productivity by slowing surface water runoff and retaining moisture. As in other parts of the world, terraces have been constructed and used in the Mediterranean for millenn...

In the Eastern Mediterranean, where some of the earliest known urban cities are located, relatively little is known about urban soils in archaeological contexts. Red Mediterranean Soil (RMS) is a hallmark of the Mediterranean region while the impact of long-term urbanization on RMS material is understudied. In this article we present evidence of RM...

Excavation and survey of archaeological sites have in recent years generated new data on the chronology of river terraces on the River Dee between Banchory and Peterculter in Aberdeenshire. Terrace fragments have been mapped and correlated on altitudinal grounds, for the first time. Five terrace surfaces are identified and named, refining the termi...

In response to Timothy Darvill's article, ‘Mythical rings?’ (this issue), which argues for an alternative interpretation of Waun Mawn circle and its relationship with Stonehenge, Parker Pearson and colleagues report new evidence from the Welsh site and elaborate on aspects of their original argument. The discovery of a hearth at the centre of the c...

Palaeoenvironmental and historical approaches have often been used separately to investigate past land-use change, but they are still rarely combined, especially in places where the most suitable archives are sediment sequences. Here we used a transdisciplinary approach combining a multiproxy palaeoenvironmental study of two pedosedimentological se...

The rich resources of river valleys provided a focus for much Mesolithic hunter-gatherer-fisher activities across Europe. In Scotland there is one notable concentration of lithic evidence for this, at several locations along the River Dee in Aberdeenshire, but the environmental context of these sites has, to date, been poorly understood. Here we pr...

Ruddons Point, on the Firth of Forth coastline, Scotland, is a laterally extensive terrace of glacial and marine sediment deposits raised above current sea level, situated near to Kincraig Point, a key site that records a series of stepped erosional platforms carved into the local bedrock, interpreted as post Last Glacial Maximum paleoshorelines. T...

This paper aims to reconstruct the alluvial activity for the Lilas river, the second-largest catchment of Euboea Island (Central Western Aegean Sea), for approximately the last three and a half millennia. The middle reaches (Gides basin) exhibit several historical alluvial terraces that were first recognised in the 1980s but have remained poorly st...

This volume presents the results of archaeological fieldwork undertaken along the River Dee, Aberdeenshire, north-east Scotland, by the Mesolithic Deeside voluntary community archaeology group between 2017 and 2019. A total of 42 fields were investigated, from which over 11,000 lithics were recovered, representing at least 15 archaeological sites a...

Rivers have always been a magnet for human settlement, providing resources, such as water, food, and energy, and communication and travel routes. Climate- and human-made changes to the environment can easily affect the fragile balance between the 'natural' and the 'urban', causing droughts, floods, and other changes in riverine systems that challen...

For future landscapes to be sustainable, significant changes in land-use and management practices will be needed. This article argues that landscape archaeology can make distinctive contributions to sustainability in two ways: firstly, by researching what were and were not sustainable ways of life in the past, and secondly by using this knowledge t...

Roman metal use and related extraction activities resulted in heavy metal pollution and contamination, in particular of Pb near ancient mines and harbors, as well as producing a global atmospheric impact. New evidence from ancient Gerasa (Jerash), Jordan, suggests that small-scale but intense Roman, Byzantine and Umayyad period urban, artisanal, an...

The Storegga tsunami, dated in Norway to 8150±30 cal. years BP, hit many countries bordering the North Sea. Run‐ups of >30 m occurred and 1000s of kilometres of coast were impacted. Whilst recent modelling successfully generated a tsunami wave train, the wave heights and velocities, it under‐estimated wave run‐ups. Work presented here used luminesc...

The history of agricultural terraces remains poorly understood due to problems in dating their construction and use. This has hampered broader research on their significance, limiting knowledge of past agricultural practices and the long-term investment choices of rural communities. The authors apply OSL profiling and dating to the sediments associ...

The discovery of a dismantled stone circle—close to Stonehenge's bluestone quarries in west Wales—raises the possibility that a 900-year-old legend about Stonehenge being built from an earlier stone circle contains a grain of truth. Radiocarbon and OSL dating of Waun Mawn indicate construction c. 3000 BC, shortly before the initial construction of...

This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7-2007-2013) (Grant agreement No. 323727).

The Upper Palaeolithic is characterised by the appearance of iconographic expressions most often depicting animals, including anthropomorphic forms, and geometric signs. The Late Upper Palaeolithic Magdalenian saw a flourishing of such depictions, encompassing cave art, engraving of stone, bone and antler blanks and decoration of tools and weapons....

The development of functional portable optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) readers over the last decade has provided practitioners with the capability to acquire luminescence signals from geological materials relatively rapidly, which allows for expedient preliminary chronostratigraphic insight when working with complex depositional systems of...

Doggerland was a landmass occupying an area currently covered by the North Sea until marine inundation took place during the mid-Holocene, ultimately separating the British landmass from the rest of Europe. The Storegga Event, which triggered a tsunami reflected in sediment deposits in the northern North Sea, northeast coastlines of the British Isl...

Wallington in central Northumberland is a late seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century country house with associated pleasure grounds. Much of the surrounding estate is agricultural land, though there are also expanses of moorland and conifer plantation. The character of Wallington’s landscape, now divided into fifteen separate farm holdings, was...

Doggerland was a land mass occupying an area currently covered by the North Sea until marine inundation took place during the mid-Holocene, ultimately separating the British land mass from the rest of Europe. The Storegga Slide, which triggered a tsunami reflected in sediment deposits in the Northern North Sea, North East coastlines of the British...

Sedimentary rocks in the Alanya Window document pulsed Permian-Triassic rifting in a proximal basin setting, adjacent to the Tauride continental unit (Geyik Dağ). Late Cambrian-Early Ordovician clastic sediments accumulated along the north margin of Gondwana on a variable shallow-marine shelf. Above an unconformity related to rift-shoulder uplift,...

To improve the knowledge about the Quaternary tectonic landforms, their potential level of activity, and the associated inherent seismic hazards in the Cordillera Oriental of northwestern Argentina we analyzed the Lomas de Carabajal area along the western border of the Lerma valley. In this region, Pliocene to Pleistocene synorogenic conglomerates...

This interdisciplinary study addresses issues of urban-riverine hinterland relationships in semi-arid environments over millennia at Gerasa/Jerash in Jordan, presenting research that stimulates new lines of enquiry with much broader implications than those relating to this single site. Through the presentation of new data on wadi-sediment responses...

Kathmandu’s medieval cities and shrines are exceptional architectural and artistic achievements underpinned by centuries of seismic adaptation. They host urban infrastructure of tangible and intangible value and play vital roles of cohesion in the life of thousands of people. They also represent portals where the heavens touch earth and individuals...

We present major new findings on the stability of Norse landing places on the island of Unst, Shetland, using a combination of geomorphology, OSL dating, fetch analysis, and sediment transport modeling. Islanders needed reliable access to the sea, and exploited sandy beaches as safe landing places. The persistence of beaches was important for long-...

This chapter concerns the use of luminescence methods as geochronological tools for dating Late Quaternary sediments in the Red Sea region. The dating methods all use stimulated luminescence to register signals developed in mineral systems in response to long term exposure to ionising radiation in the environment. The principles of luminescence dat...

Geoarchaeological survey on the island of Gozo combined with test excavations and new chronometric dating of two Neolithic temple sites at Santa Verna and Ġgantija on the Xagħra plateau have revealed well-preserved buried soils which tell a new story of soil development and change for the early-mid-Holocene period. Micromorphological analysis has s...

Previous studies have suggested that excess variations from single-photon counting systems used in luminescence dating may result in underestimation of errors and profoundly influence age models. In this study ten different photon counting systems have been investigated to explore this effect with a greater number of photomultiplier types and instr...

To understand why historic landscapes changed in the past researchers need to identify when and where changes took place, but in rural landscapes, the origins and development of many historic elements including field systems, roads, terraces and other earthworks remain poorly understood. This paper outlines a practical interdisciplinary method usin...

A high-resolution chronostratigraphy has been established for an eroding Atlantic round house at Sloc Sàbhaidh (North Uist, Scotland), combining detailed OSL profiling and dating of sediments encompassing the main bracketing events associated with the monument, radiocarbon AMS dates on bone recovered from excavated features and fills within it, and...

The strand-plain of the Usumacinta and Grijalva rivers is the largest of the Gulf of Mexico as it is characterized by a sequence of well-preserved beach-dune ridges (n > 100) distributed ∼150 km along the shoreline. This prominent coastal landform is part of the delta plain of Tabasco and Campeche. We present geochronological data of the beach-dune...

Dating agricultural terraces is a notoriously difficult problem for archaeologists. The frequent occurrence of residual material in terrace soils and the potential for post-depositional disturbance mean that conventional artefactual and lab-based dating methods often provide unreliable dates. In this paper we present a new technique using luminesce...

The Kyrenia Range underwent tectonically driven uplift during the Pliocene to Pleistocene in response to the interaction of various tectonic processes. To understand the tectonic processes driving the uplift and how this is related to uplift of other areas of the Eastern Mediterranean, uranium-series disequilibrium and optically stimulated luminesc...

The strand-plain of the Usumacinta and Grijalva rivers is one of the largest strand-plains of the Gulf of Mexico. The strand-plain is located at southern Mexico and comprises flood plains, lagoons and a deltaic plain of more than 150 km wide that is composed by beach-dune ridges parallel and subparallel to the current coastal line. These ridges are...

We use three different approaches of optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) to study young fluvial sediments located at the main channels of one of the largest fluvial systems of North America: the Usumacinta-Grijalva. We use the pulsed photo-stimulated luminescence (PPSL) system also known as portable OSL reader, full OSL dating and profiling OSL...

This paper aims to date the construction and demise of the medieval Bridge at Avignon by integrating sedimentological and stratigraphic evidence with geophysical surveys (ERT), optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) and radiocarbon chronologies. In this way the palaeo-environments of Barthelasse Island (Avignon) and the Labadie Plain (Villeneuve-l...

A detailed structural analysis of the Mesozoic–Cenozoic geological development of the central segment of the Kyrenia Range in its regional tectonic context is given here. The structural evidence comes from five structural traverses, outcrop observations, small-scale structures and related regional evidence. The majority of the structures are fault...

This study focuses on the younger of a series of Quaternary terraces along the flanks of the Kyrenia Range in northern Cyprus, specifically the Kyrenia (Girne) and the Koupia terraces. The Kyrenia (Girne) terrace is tentatively correlated with oxygen isotope stage 5 (125 Ka), and the Koupia terrace with oxygen isotope stage 3 (

Young sediments, with low sensitivity and low dose rates, are challenging for luminescence dating. Here, we present work on the site of Sandwick South, a Norse settlement, in which these challenges were present. Field gamma dose rates below 0.1 mGy a-1, and total dose rates of 0.4-0.5 mGy a-1, combined with expected ages of less than 1 ka, resulted...

A common explanation for intense soil erosion and gullying in SE Australia is the introduction by Europeans of new land use practices following their arrival in Australia in the late 18th century. Eucalyptus woodlands were cleared to introduce farming, and valley bottoms, characterized by chains of ponds with organic-rich swampy meadow (SM) soils,...

Key locations identified with the lives of important religious founders have often been extensively remodelled in later periods, entraining the destruction of many of the earlier remains. Recent UNESCO sponsored work at the major Buddhist centre of Lumbini in Nepal has sought to overcome these limitations, providing direct archaeological evidence o...

We study the paraglacial activity in Gredos Gorge, a glaciated valley of Sierra de Gredos (Central Spain), using geomorphic markers, stratigraphy and an approach based on OSL. We use luminescence signals from debris flow and fluvial deposits as well as OSL dating of three deposits to detect the main paraglacial processes in Gredos Gorge. We identif...

Evidence mainly from Neogene-Recent sedimentary units and penetrative structures (faults and folds) is used to constrain stress regimes in Cyprus. Following c. south-vergent folding/thrusting, a regional change to extension activated several depocentres during the Late Miocene-Early Pliocene. Fault analysis establishes that kinematic linkages exist...

Given the long history of human occupation on Cyprus, and the intensely disturbed and eroded nature of its landscape, the present-day topography has been linked to 102-3 years of human settlement and land use. Luminescence dating methods provide a chronological framework to interpret landscape processes and human-environmental interactions over thi...

Excavations at Meadowsfoot Beach, Mothecombe, south Devon, between 2004 and 2011 focused on two main areas. In the first, evidence for occupation in a sand dune included successive hearths and imported early medieval finds. In the second, three phases of early medieval structures were uncovered, along with more imported finds including amphora sher...

Luminescence methods were used to date a palaeoenvironmental coastal exposure on Stronsay, Orkney. The section consists of glacial sediments that are overlain by intercalated peats and windblown sands, implying varying past environmental conditions. Rapid luminescence characterisation was undertaken using screening methods in combination with quant...

Plio-Pleistocene sediments exposed around the ophiolitic Troodos Massif document spectacular uplift from below sea level to a maximum height of c. 2000 m. Sedimentation reflects a dominant control of focused tectonic uplift, modified by the effects of glacio-eustatic sea-level change and climatic change. Understanding the uplift and controls on dep...

The main objective of this work was to understand fundamental processes related to incipient continental collision through studying the tectonostratigraphic evolution of Cyprus, in its Easternmost Mediterranean context. This was achieved by compiling structural, sedimentological and stratigraphic evidence from Late Cenozoic to Recent sequences, and...

The Torridonian succession of NW Scotland comprises three groups, deposited during late Mesoproterozoic to early Neoproterozoic time, the Stoer, Sleat and Torridon. Previous workers have interred that each was formed in a rift basin and that each is internally conformable. New fieldwork and detrital zircon age data indicate that this model is incor...