The programme had a lot to recommend it. It covered the investigation in detail, explained the thought processes of the team, why they were using the particular techniques in question, how they drew their conclusions, and the contribution made by the study to pre-existing research. One of the very positive features lay in the way in which the significance of landscape archaeology was emphasised. There were, however, negative aspects, not least the way in which research on Stonehenge was presented as exclusively a male preoccupation in which the female contribution was confined to presenting a running commentary linking us to previous research and the wider Neolithic world. Of course, this is a very necessary contribution, and one which is often overlooked. Nevertheless, to present women as passive commentators in the active world of archaeology does not reflect the reality of the profession and, more importantly, can hardly be encouraging to those considering entering the profession for a career.

I’m not totally naive and I understand why media coverage has to focus on the spectacular. It plays a significant role in keeping people interested in the minutiae of our investigations. But, there is a whole other world out there, one which rarely makes the national stage, though it does, increasingly and satisfyingly, get smaller-scale publicity.

Every week, if not every day, a host of local people gird their loins and venture out, whatever the weather, to walk and re-walk fields, to check the shores of lochs and rivers, to scan the dunes and cliffs of eroding beaches. Some take fancy equipment, others a simple bunch of plastic bags and a gps. Some have years of archaeological training, most do not. All have oodles of enthusiasm and experience.

These people are all archaeologists and their contribution is as significant as that of those who make up the high-profile teams. They find, and record, the nuts and bolts of the past – small sites, unremarkable finds: the detritus of the sort of everyday lives that most of us live. These are the lives that were experienced by people in the past. They are the lives that archaeology seeks to unravel and illustrate.

High status, glitzy, sites carry a reward of their own but they do little to illustrate the commonality of ordinary life in the past. We learn little of what it may have been like to be a Neolithic farmer while watching the presentation of the newest pits to surround Stonehenge. While those who bring this new detail to life and reap the rewards of media attention are certainly to be applauded, surely it is the host of hard work that goes on to unpick the details of the rest of the traces of the past that we should really be acknowledging. The people who find joy in the ‘boring’ material, who undertake the daily trudge come wind and rain; people on whom we can rely to continue to unearth the tiniest of details however mundane. They do not seek status or reward. But their contribution is no less important – to me it is more significant. Lets not lose sight of their input.

And, to return to a bugbear. We live in a diverse world. Diversity existed in the past. Archaeology is a diverse profession. Surely we do not need to make much of an effort to reflect that in all we do?

obscure the narratives that we build about past lives. We also have to be careful that our own, twenty-first century, boundaries do not encroach on our interpretations of the past. (You might argue here that it is impossible to avoid personal bias; perhaps it is more accurate to say that we need to be aware of the ways in which our lived experience can skew our ideas about others, both those who live in other circumstances and those who lived in other times).

In my own experience, there is quite a strong divide between the domestic sphere of life and the spiritual side. While I don’t completely eschew the spiritual side at home, I tend to make use of specialised locations elsewhere in order to practice it. Thus, while I might ponder on the future of humanity while doing the washing up, or discuss the meaning of life after a leisurely meal, I would usually visit a church or other specialised location in order to celebrate a wedding, mark a funeral, or participate in ceremonial occasions. I do not have any particular fittings or furnishings at home to assist in ritual devotion, nor is there any particular corner of my house that is set aside for worship of any sort.

Of course, this does rather depend on your definition of devotion. I have a larder: could that be a space that is set aside for the celebration of food. I have a garage, though before you state the obvious, I would point out that I do not keep the car in it, it serves more as a repository for rubbish between my infrequent visits to the tip. The cat has its own special corner (which it ignores). In general, I think that my household, with its primarily secular design, reflects most households in the communities with which I am most familiar.

What I am trying to say is that in the society I know and love we have buildings for ‘living’ and we have buildings for spiritual devotion, and we keep the two sides of life very separate.

This is not so in all cultures, and it most certainly was not so everywhere in the past. It may not even have been common. Dwellings may well have included space, even furnishings, that was set aside for contemplation and worship. ‘Spiritual’ may well have been an integral part of ‘domestic’.

The Neolithic settlement site of Skara Brae in Orkney is known for the well-preserved suite of stone-built furniture to be seen inside the houses. A significant part of this lies in the shelved units that lie on the far side of the room from the entrance. These would have been prominent to those entering the space and in the nineteenth century they were ascribed the rather prosaic name, and use, of ‘dresser’. Today, many archaeologists would recognise the likelihood that they blended everyday storage and display with a deeper layer of meaning to include aspects of spirituality and ceremony. Yet, when asked to refer to them in a television documentary as ‘shrines’, I found that hard. The, to me, over interpretive nature of the term, felt wrong.

Whatever the nature of the Skara Brae furnishings, one mark of the successful archaeologist in the twenty-first century lies in their ability to eschew the rigid definitions of the past and embrace a more fluid world where all is not necessarily as it seems and boundaries are there to be challenged. Those who lived a strictly religious life still had to eat, prayer allowed those who built houses to assure a future.

Pigeonholes are useful – but should not become all-embracing. When we look at a space, we should try to blend the possibilities of interpretation.

At first, I was just straightforward shocked. How could anyone think it ok to publish this sort of piece in 2021. Then I was annoyed by the inaccuracies in the excerpt I read (the piece was behind a paywall and I refuse to subscribe to read rubbish). Finally, I realised that the two ‘issues’ are linked.

Interpretation in archaeology is a changeable feast. Views that were once acceptable are refined and reconsidered in light of contemporary thinking. New information adds subtlety and events or attitudes are seen in new ways. There is no universal truth, no ‘right’ answer. Students of archaeology learn as much about how we study the past, as they do about what may, or may not, have gone on. They develop new ways of seeing the world around them. They think about people, places, and material culture in different ways. Horizons are expanded, actions seen differently, landscapes unpicked. A degree in archaeology is like a portal to another world. Many worlds, in fact.

But those worlds are rooted in carefully curated data and method. You learn to be flexible, you learn to change your mind, and you learn to be discerning.

Whether or not we need more archaeologists (perhaps a topic for another blog?), I fear that the reduction in opportunity for everyone to engage with the discipline is eroding the stability of society. Trite, ill-informed, words that stir the emotions are easy. Curiously, the authors rarely stay around to participate in any ensuing discussion. Whether you get your idea of the past from school, television, college, newspapers, or magazines it matters that it be based in contemporary wisdom. Of course, if we get rid of enough of those who study the past, or if we sideline their discipline, then contemporary wisdom can be flawed.

Right now, I feel we are at a cusp. We still value the role of the specialist in providing the building blocks on which we base our views of life. But, and I am not sure why, apart from a general feeling that it is often easier to ignore the sometimes inconvenient details, there seems to be a move towards poorly informed attitudes based on gut reactions related to possible outcomes. Perhaps we all feel more uncertain about the future in the emerging post-pandemic/globally warming world of ours. But no matter how strongly we wish to believe that we can continue our current lifestyles if we shut our eyes to the unviability of existing consumption levels, it just won’t work. We do need to engage with the science.

The same applies to the study of the past.

Well-informed archaeology (in terms of both data and technique), can be used to make sure that our assumptions about the present are rooted in reality. Whether I like an argument or not, we do it no favours if it is based on inaccurate information.

We might not always get the past we’d wish. We might not always welcome the present we deserve. You might not want to be an archaeologist. You might not care about what went on in the centuries and millennia before the twenty-first century. But to cut back on opportunities to learn about and study the discipline of archaeology is always going to be shortsighted.

Of course, that is not the case. We rarely have personal names or recognisable families, and there are still many gaps in the evidence for which we need to use ‘plausible imagination’ when conjuring up our narratives about past communities. My experience over the past week or so has highlighted one of these gaps, in particular, for me.

We were not a big group, but I was surprised just how tired we all got – a condition that seemed to be made worse by our lack of recent familiarity with the level of social interaction in which we were indulging.  It made me think about the invisibility of conversation and banter and their role as vital parts of our social lives. I draw my own sense of being, and, indeed, much of my self-confidence, from the interaction I have with others. Yet they are almost impossible to track archaeologically. We can infer information from elements such as room size, but we never know precisely how space is used. Nor do we tend to have the sort of detail that indicates social conventions such as hierarchies of communication. I learnt my Spanish in a family setting in Chile where children still spoke to adults with deference using formal verb constructions. It has left me feeling very uncomfortable when introduced to the parents of friends in Spain for whom my use of a formal construct would leave them with the impression that I wished to consider them more as a bank manager. The sort of grease by which a society operates smoothly often leaves little archaeological trace. Yet it is as important a part of the well-being of the community as the presence of a functional hearth.

In Orkney we are privileged because we do have one glimpse into the social conventions of the past. The Orkneyinga Saga was compiled towards the end of the twelfth century from pre-existing oral histories with the aim of presenting a popular narrative history of the Norse Earls of Orkney and Shetland. It is undoubtedly idealistic, stereotypical, and often fictional. But it provides a lively and colourful account of individuals, the ways in which they interacted, and the things that they considered important. There are family relations that bring to mind the writings of Austen or the Brontës. There is fashion, conspiracy, travel, poetry, drinking and, above all, life (well – quite a lot of death actually). Now, Orkney has a fantastic repertoire of archaeological remains relating to the period. Without the Saga few would complain that our interpretation lacked detail. But with it we can move onto a different plane. The cathedral of St Magnus built by Earl Rognvald is magnificent, but when you enter it and think of the Earl who worshipped there, who most certainly saw the building as a reflection of his own importance, and yet was not above heading out with peasant fishermen to assist with the catch – well then you experience the site in a totally different way.

As someone who specialises in the archaeology of some of the earliest communities in Scotland this sort of detail is, realistically, beyond my professional grasp. But occasionally, it does not hurt to be reminded of it.

Hindsight, we are told, is a wonderful thing. In many ways, it is. But in some ways, it can hinder our view of the world.

Over the past few years, I have been part of a team researching the changing landscape of Orkney, in particular in relation to change that is driven by the rising relative sea-levels around the islands throughout the Early Holocene. In addition to the physical changes in the world around the early communities of Orkney, I am interested in the mental challenges for the people themselves. How did people make sense of the dynamic world in which they found themselves?

It has gradually become apparent to me that our interpretation of the impact of this change on those who made Orkney their home is greatly influenced by our own experience of climate change today. Of course, this is hardly surprising. We filter everything we do and think through the mesh of familiarity. But, the people of the past did not have the benefit (or limitations) of our understanding. If we only see the past through this light, then we can never begin to approach an idea of how they might have experienced life. We have to try to push ourselves out of it.

We have been lucky enough to experience a world that has been, very generally, pretty stable for the last few centuries. Relative sea-level, in Western Europe and the Northern Hemisphere, has not changed greatly. My world view sees the physical shape of the land as, more or less, naturally immutable. Over time, I have learnt how this is not the case: that mountains grow and erode, rivers wander, coastlines recede or approach – but I do not expect to experience alteration at a personal level, and I do not have the sort of connection with previous generations that affords me a collective memory of this sort of dynamism. Others might.

My lifestyle also lacks flexibility. I depend on the infrastructure of tarmacadam and rail for travel, I require a house with stone or concrete foundations, my food is gathered from all corners of the world into a massive structural depot, without a constant supply of energy carefully generated and distributed it all starts to fall apart.

The idea of change to the fabric of the world is, to me, very threatening.

But things were not so for the earliest prehistoric communities to live in Orkney, Scotland, the British Isles. Change was, for them, part of life. Many experienced a degree of sea-level change that would have been, though not visible from year to year, at least memorable from generation to generation. Some might have known stories of times of unusual cold, or heat and drought. Others might have heard of great herds of animals that no longer roamed the countryside they knew and loved. The dynamic nature of the world was, for them, normal.

It was the way things were.

In relation to sea-level rise, in particular, I find this fascinating.

Those who experienced the gradually rising relative sea-levels of the Early Holocene had no idea that sea-level rise would end. That is our privilege. For them, sea-level rise was normal. Dry land decreased; water increased. It was the way of the world. How did they build that into their view of life?

Did they feel threatened? They were, certainly, more flexible and adaptable than us. Population levels were low. Did they rely on the fact that they had always been here and could move to new locations as conditions worsened. Was this part of their place in the world, part of their relationship with nature? We seem to find ourselves too frequently in opposition to nature these days: it was not always so in the past. Did they accept a degree of fatality that individual peoples might change or even disappear? Did they experience uncertainty, perhaps even anger, and articulate it into a relationship with deities or a spiritual realm as they tried to ensure the continued existence of future generations?

We will never know. And, of course, over time, different communities in different times and places will have mediated their way through the uncertainties of the world in many different ways.

What we can do is try to strip away our own relationship with the world of today and build on a framework of past particulars in order to develop our ideas of these particular aspects of the lives of those who came before. Hindsight, in this case, does not help.

I am old enough to remember the introduction of immersive ‘time travel’ type heritage displays. They often involved using electric ‘cars’ to progress through a reconstruction, or series of reconstructions, of the past. There were even sounds, and appropriate smells, along the way. I, along with many others, loved them. Today, I think most people will have experienced this sort of thing.

I can remember some heated debate about the ‘sanitizing’ of the picture they presented. There were no horrible wounds or injuries, no distressing sights, the acoustic background inevitably contained bird song, and bad smells were confined to the merest whiff of body odour. Rats and other vermin were invariably cute, and the people, generally, well fed, and healthy. It is generally the same when you watch a television drama, or read a novel. Our view of the past was, in essence, comfortable.

Recently, however, I’ve begun to notice that things are changing. Museums are tackling more challenging aspects of the past and the displays can be thought provoking, even disturbing. The realities of our inhumanity to each other can linger in the mind long after we have got home and poured that restorative gin.

It is the same with television and novels. Producers are less worried about exploring material that might once have been deemed ‘unsuitable’. And novels can be downright depressing. Not surprisingly, perhaps, living through the current twenty-first century pandemic, I have tended to go for lighter, uplifting, reading matter. I have, perhaps, avoided thinking too deeply about the awfulness of life. Inasmuch as I thought about it at all, it did not worry me that heritage interpretation presented a rosy view of the past. We all know that the past was often difficult and gruesome. Don’t we? Did we really need to be reminded of the horrors?

I have been trying to challenge myself to stick with more difficult reading matter, and it is not that hard. Indeed, I have found it rewarding. Maybe this just says more about myself, but I am beginning to feel that we can no longer take the downside for granted. We are never going to touch on all the varied aspects of life. But we do ourselves no favours by blocking out the bits we don’t like.

There is scope for new interpretations in all fields of life. There is definitely scope to embark on new trains of thought, new challenges, new ways of seeing the past. Discomfort is relative, but it is no bad thing to accept our mutual humanity and share the bad as well as the good.

If you want to start, there are some excellent new museums displays emerging. And I can recommend this as an excellent novel that will turn your ideas about a popular period of history (and what might constitute a ‘happy’ ending) on their head: How Much of These Hills is Gold by C Pam Zhang.