Conversations about Conferences: Scotland Edition!
As part of our ongoing series, "Conversations About Conferences" we’ve decided to throw in opportunities Florida Public Archaeology Network (FPAN) staff had over
the summer for research and professional development. We hope these
conversations give you a better idea of what we're up to when we're out of town
and encourage YOU to attend and participate!
Recently Sarah Miller participated in the Learning from Loss
program sponsored by Scottish Universities Insight Institute (SUII) in partnership
with Scottish Coastal Archaeology and the Problem of Erosion (SCAPE) of St. Andrews University, University of Stirling, and Historic Environment Scotland (HES). Let's
listen in to a conversation that transpired her first day back....
__________________________
Robbie: Welcome back!
Looked like an amazing trip, can’t wait to hear all about it.
Question number one: What did you expect in attending the
Learning from Loss program?
More clear to me were the people involved and the
opportunity to collaborate with many I admire. I knew Tom Dawson, Joanna Hambly, and Ellie Graham would be part of the core team of the project, the heart of the Scotland's Coastal Heritage at Risk Project (SCHARP) in St. Andrews. Marcy Rockman from the NPS Climate Change team was part of the grant, and she’s someone I’ve wanted to get
to better know. Heritage at Risk remains a difficult topic in Florida, so I’m
fascinated how the difficulties play out on a national landscape and action
through policy. And I knew we’d
be meeting new people from University of Stirling and Historic Environment
Scotland.
 |
| Partner meeting at HES and publications to aspire to. |
Robbie: What did you hope to get out of the Learning from Loss program?
 |
| Tom presents our field visits plan of attack. |
Sarah: Overall, I thought I’d gain new insights in how to
access sites, how to prioritize, and gain greater understanding of the role of
community engagement in addressing sites at risk. We’ve done well in Florida to
set up the Heritage Monitoring Scout program, inspired by SCAPE’s SCHARP
program, but are also looking to next steps and how to answer ongoing questions
from the communities we serve. I think public awareness and education was a
major focus for us in Florida the last few years, but archaeologists in the
state are really ready now to talk priorities and how to achieve common goals
to push this topic further. The Learning from Loss program represented an
unprecedented opportunity to hear those conversations play out in Scotland and
look for who needs to be at the table for those discussions.
Robbie: What did you actually learn?
 |
| Field visits by car, ferry, and foot. |
Sarah: I learned Tom, Joanna, and Ellie are workhorses who
scheduled us within an inch of our lives! And to be honest none of us would
have wanted it any other way. They managed to eke out collaboration and
conversation out of every hour of the day, sometimes from 5 am until Midnight.
It was work, but it was good work and very much worth doing.
I’m still marinating on lessons learned, but they’re
starting to take form around coastal defenses, acceptance, carved stone, and
care of historic cemeteries. I loved how many of the field visits led us to coastal
defenses and the public is very interested in visiting these kinds of sites, of
seeing the diversity of successful and failing efforts to save sites on the
shore.
I think we all took away lessons on community acceptance.
The public understands these are enormous forces out of our control, and if
funds could even be raised to help shore up archaeological sites, those
defenses may not work. Many public archaeologists follow the “education leads to appreciation that
leads to preservation” model. We will have to adjust. Education leads to appreciation, but when preservation isn't possible we need to help with acceptance or preservation through other avenues besides physical site preservation. We need to honor the sites and honor the community. And if all we’re able to do is shine a light on these
special places at this moment in time, it is very much worth our time. We saw that at Wemyss Caves, on Sanday, and Brora. The community remembers the part they played in education and appreciation of the sites. It's time to break up the large tasks into small manageable ones that fit the community's priorities.
 |
| Community engagement in classrooms, trails, parking lots and caves. |
Another take away was the importance of examining social
value. This is something I feel we’re on the verge of in Florida—we assess site significance, but that’s more formulaic or sometimes an arms reach
away from what the community values about a site. Working out the economic value of archaeological sites sometimes takes precedence as justification of that impact is required for grants. But meeting the Learning from Loss team members from the University of Stirling helped me understand we need to do better with sites at risk to work out the social value of these sites for sustained benefits to the community.
Robbie: What was the hardest part of attending Learning from
Loss?
 |
| World heritage site Skara Brae and nearly 100 year old coastal defense. |
Sarah: I’m a visual learner, so no matter how much reading I
did or how much information was available, I have to see a site for it to really
take hold in my mind. Knowing personally the challenge of developing a sense of place, it’s a challenging task to translate lessons learned from the project to the public I serve back in Florida. I spent a good bit of time writing
notes to myself for what I can do in Florida to bring these lessons learned to
the public, or rather the model the Learning from Loss project provided. Definitely increase beach walks for the community, and hold more
public meetings.
The Learning from Loss program gave us an unprecedented amount
of time to really deliberate over lessons learned from the field visits. I
think the public needs this too. Too often we present the public with a lecture
or a walking tour of a site. But how often do we sit down and pose difficult
questions to the public and sincerely listen to their answers? Not often enough.
This is a big part of what I want to take back to Florida- to schedule some
regional town hall kind of meetings where those already interested in Florida
heritage at risk can come be part of the larger discussion and provide insights
that lead to informed decisions.
 |
| Community meeting at Newark Bay and discussing stabilization of the Norse chapel and burial ground. |
Robbie: What from Learning from Loss will you bring back to
the public for their benefit?
Sarah: I guess I got ahead of myself and started to answer
this already: the hope of organizing more community meetings and beach walks to
visit coastal defenses. But to add to that, people are very curious about what
I was doing over in Scotland and I hope to capitalize on that interest and draw
them into further discussions about sites at risk. Today I showed you guys (staff) a 10 minute show of 20 slides to give you a sense of what I was up to the last two weeks. It occurs to me I should tack these on to my regularly scheduled talks for the rest of the summer. For example, I have my annual talk to the Lighthouse
Archaeology Maritime Program’s summer field school. I talk to them about the importance of public archaeology, but I don't think they realize the larger global goals we're trying to accomplish by sharing the archaeology of our community with the public.
 |
| They have maritime heritage at risk, we have maritime heritage at risk! |
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| They have historic cemeteries at risk, we have historic cemeteries at risk! |
You say Scotland during a talk, and people have already put
on a different set of listening ears. They are immediately curious what I was doing over there and the global connection of heritage sites at risk is not immediately obvious to them. It's an opportunity. Since I got back I've noticed Scotland holds a special place in people's hearts and minds, a place they already feel connected to—a vague family connection or a place they've always wanted to visit—it opens an unique door for this timely and sensitive topic. Heritage at risk is global and
the more we understand how the climate of Florida and Scotland are connected, the more we understand how
universal the problem—and hopefully the solution—is.
Robbie: What direct activities did you do?
 |
| Many ways to engage the public on heritage at risk issues. |
Sarah: The core
group, of which I was a part, took part in all components of the program. From
lectures and discussions at the beginning and end of the program at Historic
Environment Scotland offices, to the days and days of field visits by car,
ferry, and trek. I mentioned the community meetings that took place in schools
or community centers, which were my favorite. We also did interviews for St. Andrews University to produce into videos, so that took some time at the start or end of the day.
Ellie Graham and I also had the opportunity to go on BBC Radio! It's a humbling experience to do mass media, it’s always a wake-up call: the questions the interviewer asks, the other issues taking up the
hour, the perspective people have about archaeology in general and climate
change specifically. For example, the BBC interviewer was totally surprised to
hear we have archaeology in Florida! I would argue we have world heritage
worthy archaeology in Florida, and our sites are in fact older (14,500 years
old).
Robbie: Anything that surprised you?
 |
| Celebrating my birthday after an amazing week. |
Sarah: It shouldn't have surprised me, but I didn't think ahead of time about how close the project team would grow over the weeks we were together. If the project was conducted entirely in lecture halls or classrooms, it would have been difficult to form sincere personal connections with all in the room. But each day and at each site, I found myself in a different pairing in the car or walking along the trail. We know as archaeologists that context is important, but we don't often get to understand the context of our own subculture to a very full extent. In short, we grew very close in a short amount of time. Connections were made by the team that I hope will sustain many years over many many miles.
And not everyone was from far away, Bill Lees [Executive Director of FPAN] and Monica Beck of UWF were part of the team. It was more important than I could have anticipated to soundboard ideas in the moment and decompress the days events with them, I felt more balanced throughout the project and I feel more sustained support going forward. They saw ideas and solutions I didn't see and brought a range of experience to conversations I could not. Bill takes every opportunity to tell me I'm doing a good job and I'm a valuable part of the FPAN team, but really I've been given the opportunity by Bill to explore public archaeology and heritage at risk--and the support for ideas that came out of those opportunities--that very few people experience.
And I'm grateful Tom and Jo for bringing us into the fold. For recognizing the work we're doing in Florida and believing we could be strong members of the team. It makes me want to work that much harder to know the names and faces of so many others joined in this effort.
Robbie: Got future
plans for Learning from Loss?
Sarah: Oh yes! In August we have our
3rd Annual Tidally United Summit in Florida where I present the annual
report for our Heritage Monitoring Scout program. Learning from Loss will be
one of the major highlights in my presentation and provide attendees with
another format for pubic engagement by mimicking the Learning from Loss
template. I’ll see some of the Learning from Loss colleagues at the European
Archaeology Association meetings in Barcelona where we have two papers in
different sessions that present work done on heritage at risk in Florida. I’m
the Chair of the Society for Historical Archaeology’s (SHA) Heritage at Risk Committee, where I hope to report back from the Learning from Loss program via the SHA blog and
help foster international collaborations as we plan for our annual conference
in Lisbon, Portugal in 2021. And finally, the Learning from Loss program
focused on impacts by 2030. I think it’s fair to say I’ve put 2030 on my radar
as a year to return to Scotland and see what became of the communities and
sites we visited as 2040 and 2050 light up on the horizon.
 |
| Monitoring Skara Brae! |
Timetable for #LearningfromLoss field trip:
Day
|
Date
|
Daytime activity
|
Travel
|
Ferries
|
Evening accommodation
|
Sunday
|
10
|
Edinburgh
/ Three endangered cemeteries
|
Edinburgh
|
||
Monday
|
11
|
Meeting
in Edinburgh / HES
|
Edinburgh
- St Andrews
|
St
Andrews, Agnes Blackadder Hall
|
|
Tuesday
|
12
|
Wemyss
Caves
|
St
Andrews - Wemyss
|
St
Andrews, Agnes Blackadder Hall
|
|
Wednesday
|
13
|
St
Andrews and Arbroath
|
St
Andrews - Brechin
|
Brechin,Northern
Hotel
|
|
Thursday
|
14
|
St
Vigeans and Aberlemno
|
Brechin
- Aberdeen
|
Evening
ferry to Kirkwall
|
Stenness,
Standing Stones Hotel
|
Friday
|
15
|
Orkney
Mainland
|
Around
Mainland
|
Stenness,
Standing Stones Hotel
|
|
Saturday
|
16
|
Sanday
sites
|
Around
Sanday
|
Morning
ferry to Sanday
|
Sanday,
Kettletoft
|
Sunday
|
17
|
Sanday
|
Around
Sanday
|
Sanday,
Kettletoft
|
|
Monday
|
18
|
Orkney
Mainland
|
Around
Mainland
|
Midday
ferry to Kirkwall
|
Stromness,
Northlink Ferry
|
Tuesday
|
19
|
Caithness
sites (brochs and castles)
|
Scrabster
- Dornoch
|
Morning
ferry to Scrabster
|
Dornoch,
Eagle Hotel
|
Wednesday
|
20
|
Sutherland
sites (Dornoch and Brora)
|
Dornoch
- Edinburgh
|
Edinburgh
|
|
Thursday
|
21
|
Meeting
HES, Edinburgh
|
Edinburgh
|
Learning from Loss Project Team
Bill Lees (Executive Director, Florida Public
Archaeology Network, University of West of Florida)
David Harkin (Climate Change Scientist, Historic
Environment Scotland)
Deirdre Cameron (Senior Casework Officer, Historic
Environment Scotland)
Ellie Graham (SCAPE, University of St Andrews)
Hannah Genders Boyd (Intern, Historic Environment
Scotland)
Hugh McBrien (ALGAO Chair and Service Manager, Association of Local Government Officers)
Jo Hambly (SCAPE, University of St Andrews)
John Raven (Deputy Head of Casework, Historic Environment
Scotland)
Kirsty Owen (Senior Archaeology Manager, Historic
Environment Scotland)
Laura Hindmarch (Archaeology and World Heritage
Manager, Historic Environment Scotland)
Liz Robson (PhD candidate, University of Stirling)
Mairi Davies (Climate Change Manager, Historic
Environment Scotland)
Marcy Rockman (Climate Change Adaptation Coordinator,
US National Parks Service)
Monica Beck (University of West of Florida)
Qian Gao (Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Stirling)
Robin Turner, Chair (Head of Survey & Recording,
Historic Environment Scotland)
Sally Foster (Lecturer in Heritage and Conservation,
University of Stirling)
Sarah Miller (Regional Director, FPAN, Flagler
College)
Sian Jones (University of Stirling)
Tom Dawson (SCAPE, University of St Andrews)
For more about the Learning from Loss program, visit the
SUII project page or search #learningfromloss on Twitter to see live tweets
from the field.
See also:
Scottish Universities Insight Institute Learning From Loss programme page
William Lees "FPAN in Scotland: Learning from Loss 2018"
Text and Images: Sarah Miller, FPAN staff