OnlineFirst - "The wood storks of Lake Somerset: Multispecies landscapes of the Holocene/Anthropocene boundary event" by Zachary Caple:

#planetarytransition #colonialcapitalistinvasions #nicheconstruction #multispeciesethnography #landscapehistory #Florida

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/25148486251350860

I love looking down into this valley and knowing the layers of history both under and on the surface of the landscape:

On the distant, barely-visible hilltops opposite are Iron Age fortifications, which may very well have seen continuous usage through and after the Roman period, since we're well north of Hadrian's Wall.

The same ridge was where the Scottish army camped before the Battle of Flodden was fought in September 1513, on a moor just over the horizon.

The sloping hill in front is the medieval glebe land, belonging to the living of the church (St Michael and All Angels, just hidden behind the yew tree on the left), with the remains of the (probably) 16th Century Parson's Tower, and earthworks associated with the medieval castle and village.

Where the yew tree is now planted was the site of the old parsonage, likely built as a more comfortable replacement to the Parson's Tower after the end of border warfare in the 17th Century. Demolished in the mid 19th century, the parsonage was said to be a beautiful, atmospheric building, complete with several ghosts.

The castle tower visible here are 19th century; it underwent major rebuilding in the 18th and 19th centuries, but there are medieval foundations to several of the other towers.

I love taking people around this landscape and telling the hidden stories.

#Northumberland #History #LandscapeHistory

Community greens (Ecology 🏞️)

Community Greens, sometimes referred to as backyard commons, urban commons, or pocket neighborhoods, are shared open green spaces on the inside of city blocks, created either when residents merge backyard space or reclaim underutilized urban land such as vacant lots and alleyways. These shared spaces are communally used and managed only by ...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_greens

#CommunityGreens #Parks #Ecology #Landscape #CommonLand #LandscapeHistory

Late afternoon dog walk. I love this view, looking across north Northumberland to the Borders and the three peaks of the Eildon.

On those distant slopes, Thomas the Rhymer met the fairy queen (or 'queen of an unco' land' as she was in the oldest version we have) and went with her into the hills.

There, many years later, Canobie Dick tried and failed to wake the sleeping King Arthur in a torchlit chamber under the same hills.

A landmark visible from virtually every raised point in the whole region and easily identifiable, no wonder it was used as the site of a Bronze and later Iron Age settlement, then the Roman fort of Trimontium, and went down in legend as a place of magic and mystery.

#Northumberland #ScottishBorders #Folklore #Landscape #LandscapePhotography #EildonHills #History #LandscapeHistory @folklore

Blue skies and Autumn temperatures suddenly arrived.

Large skein of geese flying overhead, arriving with the colder weather. Folklore says they bring the snow to the hills, and we did have frost overnight.

Traces of history hidden in these photos: where I stood at the top of the hill, above the river, used to be a farm called Henlaw, the name probably referring to "waterhens" aka moorhens. The farm is just a few bumps in the ground and the name is long forgotten and appears on no modern maps, but down below you can still see the marks of the plough on what is now pasture prone to flooding and waterlogging.

Down below is Sandyford Farm, marking an old ford across the river, and the point at which the Pallinsburn runs into the river - the burn said in legend to be named after Paulinus, the missionary bishop who baptised King Edwin of Northumbria not far away from here.

Across the river, in unmarked crop fields, is suspected from a wealth of metal finds to be some sort of early medieval site - unconfirmed, but the archaeologists do keep coming back. A medieval road ran there too, down to a bridge said to be where troops crossed for the battle of Flodden a few miles away.

#Northumberland #landscape #history #histodons #medieval #RuralHistory #LandscapeHistory #folklore #DogsOfMastodon #Autumn #October

Native tribes living in the NE US burned forest underbrush to open up the space while keeping the tree cover. I ran across this controlled burn that I think represents how this worked.

The goal was to create an open game park-like space in which people lived alongside the animals they hunted and the crops they grew. This approach was different from how English settlers lived in nature, hence a key aspect of the culture clash.

#NativeAmerican @histodons @histodon #landscapehistory #nature