Richard Tipping
Biographic Data
| ID | 5512937 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Richard Tipping |
| GIVEN NAMES | Richard |
| FAMILY NAME | Tipping |
| SIGNATURE | TIPPING R |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Stirling |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-6915-7095 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 59 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 180 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 59 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1977 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2022 |
| H-INDEX | 8 |
Environmental reconstruction and formation processes in a large Mesolithic lithic scatter at Nethermills of Crathes, Aberdeenshire, Scotland
The terrain around Stirling at the battle of Bannockburn 1314
Bannockburn is of immense importance in the Medieval histories of England and Scotland. Where the battle took place is still unknown, as is the terrain, what the place looked like. The two parts of this paper examine these problems by generating new data on environmental and land use reconstruction. The physical appearance of the landscape was reconstructed from radiocarbon (14C) dating of landforms and palaeo-environmental analyses of sediment s…
The terrain around Stirling at the Battle of Bannockburn 1314
In this second part, we analyse from new radiocarbon (14C) dating of landforms, palaeo-environmental analyses of sediment stratigraphies and documentary evidence for land use, the ‘high road’ to Stirling, across high ground west of the coastal plain, in the early 14th century. We identify a number of significant mis-perceptions of the landscape in the literature, and again stress the need for linked multi-proxy data sources. We re-think the obsta…
Possible climatically driven, later prehistoric woodland decline on Ben Lomond, central Scotland
Later prehistoric woodland decline over most parts of Scotland is widely regarded as having been anthropogenic, via a range of mechanisms, to create farmland. Climatic causes are seen only to have driven the rapid expansion and then terminal decline of Pinus sylvestris around 2000 cal BC . Here we report radiocarbon dated analyses of pollen, microscopic charcoal, coprophilous fungal spores and peat humification from a small, water-shedding interf…
Radiocarbon dating of historic mudflat sediments at Airth in the inner Forth estuary and the impact on the estuary of nineteenth century agricultural improvements
The results of sediment-stratigraphic, diatom and pollen analyses, and AMS 14C dating of salt marsh sediments at Higgin’s Neuk, Airth in the inner Forth estuary in central Scotland are reported. Engineering borehole records of abundant peat within mudflat sediments encouraged work to establish rates of mudflat accretion over the last several centuries. However, six 14C assays on peat closely associated with buried archaeological structures of lik…
New Evidence for Upland Occupation in the Mesolithic of Scotland
This paper discusses the evidence for periodic human activity in the Cairngorm Mountains of Scotland from the late 9th millennium to the early 4th millennium cal bc . While contemporary paradigms for Mesolithic Europe acknowledge the significance of upland environments, the archaeological record for these areas is not yet as robust as that for the lowland zone. Results of excavation at Chest of Dee, along the headwaters of the River Dee, are set …
The Land was Forever
Little House in the Mountains? A small Mesolithic structure from the Cairngorm Mountains, Scotland
Moments of crisis
There is strong evidence for many key turning points in Scottish and north-west European prehistory – what we call moments of 'crisis' – to be associated with evidence for widespread and abrupt natural changes in climate. Association or coincidence are not cause, though, and the testing of specific hypotheses to establish this relation is needed. The timing of these moments of abrupt climatic change in Scottish prehistory is proposed in a review …
Use and abandonment of a Neolithic field system at Belderrig, Co. Mayo, Ireland
This paper presents evidence for the nature of early and middle Neolithic farming activity, its impact upon the landscape and environment, and its vulnerability to climatic change, at a sub-peat field system at Belderg Beg, North Co. Mayo, Ireland. Pollen analyses of a 14 C dated peat deposit close to the field system indicates that basin peat accumulated from c. 5590 to 5330 cal. BP, probably triggered by farming activities. The palynological ev…
An Upper Palaeolithic Flint and Chert Assemblage From Howburn Farm, South Lanarkshire, Scotland
This paper describes the discovery of the first open-air Upper Palaeolithic site to be found in Scotland, at Howburn, near Biggar in South Lanarkshire. An account is given of the composition and distribution of the lithic assemblage, which is discussed in terms of its British and north-west European context. Provisional parallels drawn are with the Late Hamburgian (Havelte) sites and assemblages of southern Scandinavia, northern Germany and the N…
A palynological and geoarchaeological investigation into Bronze Age farming at Belderg Beg, Co. Mayo, Ireland
Storminess as an explanation for the decline of pine woodland ca. 7,400 years ago at Loch Tulla, western Scotland
Response to late Bronze Age climate change of farming communities in north east Scotland
Modelling land use around an early Neolithic timber ‘hall’ in north east Scotland from high spatial resolution pollen analyses
Excavation of a beaker cist burial with meadowsweet at Home Farm, Udny Green, Aberdeenshire
This paper summarizes the results of the rescue excavation of a short cist burial of a young male.Pollen and other analyses of residues in and immediately below the accompanying beaker suggestthat it had contained a drink, possibly milk, flavoured with meadowsweet and possibly containinghoney. Pollen analysis also revealed that the cist had been constructed within an open, farmedlandscape, probably not far from a settlement; wheat and perhaps bar…
Medieval archaeological features at Dunglass Burn, Borders Region, Scotland
An assemblage of small archaeological features from an eroding coastal section on the Dunglass Burn, near Cockburnspath, in south-east Scotland is described. The immediacy of the threat from coastal storms necessitated a salvage excavation of the features, and because this approach may be increasingly needed given the impacts of global climate change, this approach is evaluated. One component of the assemblage is a series of four small, well pres…
Early historic settlement on the western carselands of Forth valley
This paper challenges the view, widespread amongst historians and archaeologists, that prior to the Improvement period the carselands west of Stirling were devoid of settlement due to near-continuous peat mosses. The argument is supported by cartographic evidence of pre-Improvement settlement and by documentary evidence of farming and settlement from the 15th century onward. Settlement was concentrated along the river margins and most of the mode…
Prehistoric Pinus woodland dynamics in an upland landscape in northern Scotland
The landscape context of the Antonine Wall
The landscape, environmental and land use changes before, during and after Antonine occupation are examined for the region of central Scotland between the Southern Uplands and the Grampian Highlands, principally from the published literature. The purpose is to synthesize and make available a range of new palaeoenvironmental data, to evaluate critically these new data-sets, to search for significant shifts in landscape or land use and to character…
Sensing small-scale human activity in the palaeoecological record
This paper examines the importance of palynological site selection criteria, speci”cally basin size, for the detection of vegetation mosaics and small- or local-scale human activity within a spatially diverse, mosaic landscape. Using a site selection strategy which recognizes landscape patchiness, pollen analyses from three small peat basins (10–56 m diameter) in an open, exposed upland valley (>250 m OD) provide records which are sensitive to lo…
Complex hydroseral vegetation succession and ‘dryland’ pollen signals
Pollen assemblages from sediment systems developed in response to changing sea level provide potentially valuable archives of local landscape dynamics in the coastal zone. Changes in wetland vegetation structure associated with the successional transition from saline to freshwater communities, and subsequent terrestrialization, however, will have marked effects on the palynological signal from surrounding dry land communities by altering the taph…
Neville Brown, History and Climate Change
Continuity and stability in past upland land uses in the western Cheviot Hills, southern Scotland
Upland areas of the British Isles have frequently been seen as vulnerable to environmental stress, and because of this climatic and economic marginality, to have been colonised, abandoned and recolonised rather than to have endured and adapted. This paper presents 14C (radiocarbon)-dated palaeoecological data, supported by archaeological evidence, providing a continuous record of vegetation, settlement and land use in one upland landscape high in…
Angus J.L. Winchester, The Harvest of the Hills
Modelling land use around an early Neolithic timber ‘hall’ in north east Scotland from high spatial resolution pollen analyses
Anthropogenic” Pollen Assemblages from a Bronze Age Cemetery at Linga Fiold, West Mainland, Orkney
"Ritual" Floral Tributes in the Scottish Bronze Age—Palynological Evidence
Prehistoric Pinus woodland dynamics in an upland landscape in northern Scotland
Soil Pollen and Soil Micromorphological Analyses of Old Ground Surfaces on Biggar Common, Borders Region, Scotland
Little House in the Mountains? A small Mesolithic structure from the Cairngorm Mountains, Scotland
Response to late Bronze Age climate change of farming communities in north east Scotland
Holocene evolution of a lowland Scottish landscape
This series of papers addresses the principal natural and anthropogenic environmental changes that have transformed a typical lowland Scottish landscape during the Holocene. Sediment- and pollen- stratigraphic techniques, together with radiocarbon dating, are applied in this paper to the stratigraphy of a raised bog at Burnfoothill Moss, eastern Dumfriesshire, to deduce changes in groundwater levels within the bog, and by inference, changes in ef…
Use and abandonment of a Neolithic field system at Belderrig, Co. Mayo, Ireland
This paper presents evidence for the nature of early and middle Neolithic farming activity, its impact upon the landscape and environment, and its vulnerability to climatic change, at a sub-peat field system at Belderg Beg, North Co. Mayo, Ireland. Pollen analyses of a 14 C dated peat deposit close to the field system indicates that basin peat accumulated from c. 5590 to 5330 cal. BP, probably triggered by farming activities. The palynological ev…
Sensing small-scale human activity in the palaeoecological record
This paper examines the importance of palynological site selection criteria, speci”cally basin size, for the detection of vegetation mosaics and small- or local-scale human activity within a spatially diverse, mosaic landscape. Using a site selection strategy which recognizes landscape patchiness, pollen analyses from three small peat basins (10–56 m diameter) in an open, exposed upland valley (>250 m OD) provide records which are sensitive to lo…
Black Henbane (Hyoscyamus nigerL.) in the Scottish Neolithic
An Upper Palaeolithic Flint and Chert Assemblage From Howburn Farm, South Lanarkshire, Scotland
This paper describes the discovery of the first open-air Upper Palaeolithic site to be found in Scotland, at Howburn, near Biggar in South Lanarkshire. An account is given of the composition and distribution of the lithic assemblage, which is discussed in terms of its British and north-west European context. Provisional parallels drawn are with the Late Hamburgian (Havelte) sites and assemblages of southern Scandinavia, northern Germany and the N…
Holocene evolution of a lowland Scottish landscape
In this second of three papers on the environmental changes that have affected a lowland Scottish landscape during the Holocene, pollen and microscopic charcoal counts, supported by radiocarbon dates, form the basis for interpreting vegetation changes that characterized 'dryland' soils around the raised bog of Burnfoothill Moss, on the Solway Firth. The migration of Corylus, and later of Quercus and Ulmus, appear to have been later than at nearby…
The form and the fate of Scotland's woodlands
Provides an attempt to reconstruct both the natural distribution and composition of Scotland's woodlands, and the spatial patterning, timing and causal mechanisms in their removal. Particular attention is given to recent models of vegetation change, new ideas concerning Mesolithic woodland manipulation, the Mesolithic/Neolithic transition and the current status of elm decline, and to the interplay of climate change and human activity. An appendix…
Excavations at Three Early Bronze Age Burial Monuments in Scotland
The excavations of the cemetery groups at Balneaves, Loanleven and Park of Tongland facilitate an examination of many aspects of Bronze Age burial practices in Scotland. They are notable as much for the differences in burial ritual they imply as for the very narrow chronological period in which they were used. The three sites produced a total of seventeen 14 C dates, two of which are aberrant, with means of the remaining fifteen falling within a …
Biggar Common, 1987-93
A fieldwalking exercise by Lanark and District Archaeological Society (LADAS) on moorland recently ploughed for forestry revealed the presence of an extensive Early Neo, Late Neo and EBA artefact scatter, a long mound and five round cairns. Excavation of two of the round cairns revealed them to be simple, single-phase monuments of Beaker date, sealing possibly cultivated soils. The long mound was a complex, multi-phase monument of Early Neo date …
Towards an environmental history of the Bowmont Valley and the northern Cheviot Hills
The many and complex landscape changes that have occurred in the northern Cheviot Hills in the last c. 1000years are reviewed. The approach taken is to examine this period using, predominantly, palaeoenvironmental techniques, and the intention is to indicate the power of such reconstructions when allied to a secure and precise timescale. Palaeoenvironmental analyses identify important landscape changes not generally detected from documentary or a…
New Evidence for Upland Occupation in the Mesolithic of Scotland
This paper discusses the evidence for periodic human activity in the Cairngorm Mountains of Scotland from the late 9th millennium to the early 4th millennium cal bc . While contemporary paradigms for Mesolithic Europe acknowledge the significance of upland environments, the archaeological record for these areas is not yet as robust as that for the lowland zone. Results of excavation at Chest of Dee, along the headwaters of the River Dee, are set …
A palynological and geoarchaeological investigation into Bronze Age farming at Belderg Beg, Co. Mayo, Ireland
The use of henbane ( Hyoscyamus niger L.) as a hallucinogen at Neolithic ‘ritual’ sites
Were drugs in use in prehistory? Recent claims for the use of hallucinogenic substances have been made, and caused a stir. However, new work on a Scottish Neolithic ceremonial site suggests archaeologists (and the media) may have been jumping to the wrong conclusions
Roman impact on the environment at Hadrian's Wall
The results of pollen analyses from two ditch fills of early Roman age from the fort at Vindolanda, close to Hadrian's Wall, are presented. The ditch fills can be closely dated to the periods c. AD 85-92 and c. AD 160-180, and this chronological precision provides insights into the timing of human impacts on the vegetation around this part of Hadrian's Wall which are unobtainable from more conventional radiocarbon dated stratigraphies. The analys…
The excavation of a kerbed cairn at Beech Hill House, Coupar Angus, Perthshire
A much-disturbed kerbed cairn was excavated in the summer of 1989, prior to building work on the site.Two phases of prehistoric activity were discerned.In Phase 1, evidence of pre-cairn agricultural activity was identified in a residual old ground surface which produced a tenuous third millennium BC date.No structural features were identified but settlement in the vicinity was suggested by the presence of flint artefacts and Neolithic pottery.Pha…
Storminess as an explanation for the decline of pine woodland ca. 7,400 years ago at Loch Tulla, western Scotland
Data on mid-Holocene climatic, vegetation and anthropogenic interactions at Stanshiel Rig, southern Scotland
Excavation of an Early Bronze Age cemetery and other sites a the West Water Reservoir, West Linton, Scottish Borders
An Early Bronze Age flat cist cemetery was excavated after it was exposed by reservoir erosion. Nine surviving cists were found, containing a mixture of inhumations and cremations. Grave goods included food vessels and a unique cannel coal and lead necklace. Where skeletal remains survived, most of the deceased were sub-adult or young adults. Evidence of floral tributes was found in three burials. A number of other features, one containing Beaker…
Mok
Editors Richard Tipping and Rob Tillett describe the history, purpose and editorial approach of their poetry journal MOK: a magazine of contemporary dissolution and intemperance (1968-69)
The Stratigraphy of Kirkhead Cave, an Upper Palaeolithic Site in Northern England
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The Prehistoric Occupation of Carradale, Kintyre
A concentration of archaeological features at Achnasavil, Carradale, which has been recorded since 1985, is being rapidly destroyed by river erosion. Limited excavations were carried out in 1991 in order to date and characterise the nature of the site. Four periods of activity have been identified: cultivation in the Neolithic period; an occupation in the early Bronze Age; a domestic settlement in the late Bronze Age; and an Iron Age occupation. …
Balneaves
Purpose of the examination The identification of distinctive suites of pollen types within the cist floor at Loanleven and several other Bronze Age ‘cemeteries’ in Scotland (see Loanleven report below) led to the need to investigate the possibility of similar patterns within the Balneaves complex. Samples from the basal and most securely stratified fills of five of the pits at Balneaves were examined (F1110A; Pit 3: F1109C and E from Pit 6: F1107…
Excavations at Three Early Bronze Age Burial Monuments in Scotland
The excavations of the cemetery groups at Balneaves, Loanleven and Park of Tongland facilitate an examination of many aspects of Bronze Age burial practices in Scotland. They are notable as much for the differences in burial ritual they imply as for the very narrow chronological period in which they were used. The three sites produced a total of seventeen 14 C dates, two of which are aberrant, with means of the remaining fifteen falling within a …
Survey and excavation at Creag na Caillich, Killin, Perthshire
A five-week fieldwork programme in the spring of 1989, sponsored by the National Museums of Scotland, has shed new light on the nature, scale and duration of stone procurement and processing activities at the Creag na
"Ritual" Floral Tributes in the Scottish Bronze Age—Palynological Evidence
Soil Pollen and Soil Micromorphological Analyses of Old Ground Surfaces on Biggar Common, Borders Region, Scotland
Holocene evolution of a lowland Scottish landscape
Mapping and radiocarbon dating of fluvial terrace fragments along the greater length of the Kirtle Water resulted in the definition of five major terrace surfaces. Correlations with proxy records of climate change (Part I) and anthropogenic activity (Part II) are made to understand causal mechanisms in fluvial behaviour. The limitations of such correlations are emphasized. The highest terrace (Kirtle I) is thought to be of Devensian Lateglacial a…
Holocene evolution of a lowland Scottish landscape
This series of papers addresses the principal natural and anthropogenic environmental changes that have transformed a typical lowland Scottish landscape during the Holocene. Sediment- and pollen- stratigraphic techniques, together with radiocarbon dating, are applied in this paper to the stratigraphy of a raised bog at Burnfoothill Moss, eastern Dumfriesshire, to deduce changes in groundwater levels within the bog, and by inference, changes in ef…
Holocene evolution of a lowland Scottish landscape
In this second of three papers on the environmental changes that have affected a lowland Scottish landscape during the Holocene, pollen and microscopic charcoal counts, supported by radiocarbon dates, form the basis for interpreting vegetation changes that characterized 'dryland' soils around the raised bog of Burnfoothill Moss, on the Solway Firth. The migration of Corylus, and later of Quercus and Ulmus, appear to have been later than at nearby…
The form and the fate of Scotland's woodlands
Provides an attempt to reconstruct both the natural distribution and composition of Scotland's woodlands, and the spatial patterning, timing and causal mechanisms in their removal. Particular attention is given to recent models of vegetation change, new ideas concerning Mesolithic woodland manipulation, the Mesolithic/Neolithic transition and the current status of elm decline, and to the interplay of climate change and human activity. An appendix…
Excavations beside Sruth a' Mhuilinn ('the Mill Stream'), Iona
Excavation beside Sruth a'Mhuilinn recorded a man-made, sub-rectangular pool cut into the gravels of the stream course, as well as a group of large post-pits. The pool was deliberately back-filled in the course of a recent reorganization of the site. There is no salient archaeological interpretation, but discussion considers whether this is the site of a modern horizontal water mill, and weighs this possibility in the light of the well-attested t…
Jerablus-Tahtani, Syria, 1995
A fourth season of fieldwork was mainly concerned with Early Bronze Age occupations belonging to Period 2. Major discoveries include a second chamber of the monumental tomb, Tomb 302, reported in the last issue of LEVANT, a paved and stepped passage along its precinct wall leading from the tomb entrance towards the upper tell, a fort with white plastered glacis outworks, intrasettlement burials of different types, stratigraphically intercalated w…
Microscopic Charcoal Records, Inferred Human Activity and Climate Change in the Mesolithic of Northernmost Scotland
Carn Dubh, Moulin, Perthshire
Some excavations on the line of the Antonine Wall 1985-93
Presents the results of twenty-one excavations and watching briefs along the Wall. The alignment of the Wall and the position of fort defences were identified in several places. New information about the superstructure of the Wall, soldiers' diet, and the contemporary environment was obtained. There are specialist reports on: Botanical remains from the inner ditch' by Sheila Boardman & Camilla Dickson (653); `Plant macrofossils' by Sheila Boardma…
Two Orcadian cist burials
Two cists representing common forms of Bronze Age burial monument were excavated in 1992 in Orkney.A short flat cist at Midskaill, on the island of Egilsay, was previously unrecorded and it contained coarse pottery sherds and 'cramp' (vitrified cremation slag).No human bone was found.The second cist, located within a mound at Linga Fiold, Sandwick, on Mainland Orkney, contained human bone and cramp.The Linga Fiold mound is one of a recorded and p…
The excavation of a kerbed cairn at Beech Hill House, Coupar Angus, Perthshire
A much-disturbed kerbed cairn was excavated in the summer of 1989, prior to building work on the site.Two phases of prehistoric activity were discerned.In Phase 1, evidence of pre-cairn agricultural activity was identified in a residual old ground surface which produced a tenuous third millennium BC date.No structural features were identified but settlement in the vicinity was suggested by the presence of flint artefacts and Neolithic pottery.Pha…
Jerablus-Tahtani, Syria, 1996
The fifth season of University of Edinburgh/British Institute at Amman for Archaeology and History-sponsored excavations at Jerablus–Tahtani in the neighbourhood of Carchemish, north Syria, was devoted to investigations of its Early Bronze Age occupation, Period 2 of the site's history. In order to evaluate occupation between the Uruk retraction and the construction of the fort initially reported in Levant 28, 1996, 7–9, in situ pre-fort deposits…
A multiproxy approach to the function of postmedieval ridge-and-furrow cultivation in upland northern Britain
The remains of agricultural activity preserved beneath current rough pasture in the uplands of Tweed dale in southern Scotland are subjected to multidisciplinary analysis by archaeological survey, documentary research, and palaeoecological reconstruction through pollen analysis, supported by 210 Pb and other forms of dating. The survey showed the features to represent grooved rig, a form of ploughing presumed to be related to cereal cultivation i…
Roman impact on the environment at Hadrian's Wall
The results of pollen analyses from two ditch fills of early Roman age from the fort at Vindolanda, close to Hadrian's Wall, are presented. The ditch fills can be closely dated to the periods c. AD 85-92 and c. AD 160-180, and this chronological precision provides insights into the timing of human impacts on the vegetation around this part of Hadrian's Wall which are unobtainable from more conventional radiocarbon dated stratigraphies. The analys…
Biggar Common, 1987-93
A fieldwalking exercise by Lanark and District Archaeological Society (LADAS) on moorland recently ploughed for forestry revealed the presence of an extensive Early Neo, Late Neo and EBA artefact scatter, a long mound and five round cairns. Excavation of two of the round cairns revealed them to be simple, single-phase monuments of Beaker date, sealing possibly cultivated soils. The long mound was a complex, multi-phase monument of Early Neo date …
A still worm from excavations at Carrick Castle, Argyll
During 1993 excavations at Carrick Castle, Argyll, a rare item of distilling equipment was unearthed. Possibly dating to the 17th century, the copper alloy condenser or ‘worm’ is unique in design. Pollen analysis of an associated soil sample supports a use in the production of grain spirits. The technology of manufacture and historical context of the worm are examined in depth
Towards an environmental history of the Bowmont Valley and the northern Cheviot Hills
The many and complex landscape changes that have occurred in the northern Cheviot Hills in the last c. 1000years are reviewed. The approach taken is to examine this period using, predominantly, palaeoenvironmental techniques, and the intention is to indicate the power of such reconstructions when allied to a secure and precise timescale. Palaeoenvironmental analyses identify important landscape changes not generally detected from documentary or a…
Geography (56 works) · Archaeology (55 works) · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies (42 works) · Geology (32 works) · Geology and Paleoclimatology Research (30 works) · Pleistocene-Era Hominins and Archaeology (22 works) · Ecology (21 works) · Physical geography (19 works) · History (18 works) · Pollen (18 works)