Reconstructing Battles and Battlefields: Scientific Solutions to Historical Problems at Bannockburn, Scotland

Abstract

The need for scientists to add objective data to historical studies is argued using as a case study the battle of Bannockburn in 1314. The terrain was critical in this battle, as in so many others, but cannot be understood from the few primary sources, which are not contemporary and are strongly biased. Scientific techniques can cut through hyperbole. The methodology and techniques used to better understand the landscape around the battle are briefly discussed, particularly new advances in radiocarbon dating which enable analysis to approach the chronological precision of the archaeologist, if not the historian. Our data are argued to have clarified muddled interpretations.

Keywords:

• battlefield archaeology
• environmental reconstruction
• environmental history
• Bannockburn 1314

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to the Leverhulme Trust for supporting this project (Grant RPG-2012-717), to the research and other offices of Stirling, Glasgow, Aberdeen, and Coventry Universities, and to Derek Alexander and Tom Ingrey-Counter (National Trust for Scotland), Tony Pollard and Iain Banks (Centre for Battlefield Archaeology, Glasgow University), John Atkinson (Northlight Heritage), Folko Boermans and Richard Downes (BBC Scotland), John McArthur (Stirling University), Donald Balsillie, Guy Harewood, and Murray Cook (Stirling Council), Michael Prestwich (Durham University), and the many land-owners who gave us access in the bitter cold of early 2013.