Scottish Borders Research Articles

Ichnofauna record cryptic marine incursions onto a coastal floodplain at a key Lower Mississippian tetrapod site

Ichnofossils from a Lower Mississippian (Tournaisian) coastal plain succession with a rich vertebrate fauna, including early tetrapods, record repeated, short-lived marine interactions that influenced floodplain lake development and ecosystems. The ichnofauna contrasts with the more typical Scoyenia Ichnofacies of other Devonian-Carboniferous tetrapod sites. In the Tournaisian Ballagan Formation of the Scottish Borders, Chondrites is identified in 128 horizons within a 500-m succession and is associated with lesser occurrences of phycosiphoniform burrows, Diplocraterion, Rhizocorallium and Zoophycos?. Chondrites and phycosiphoniform burrows commonly occur within dolostones, interpreted as part of a saline-hypersaline lake facies association, containing a non-marine to marginal marine macrofauna of bivalves, ostracods, Spirorbis, Serpula and sarcopterygian fish. Marine scolecodonts are reported from 18 horizons of diverse lithology, four of which co-occur with Chondrites. The single-colonisation, single-tier, high ichnofabric index and thin beds (mean 10cm thick) that characterise Chondrites horizons indicate: 1) adverse environmental conditions; 2) rapid colonisation of the sediment; and 3) short-lived bioturbation episodes. Other ichnotaxa identified are Monocraterion and Asterosoma?, which occur exclusively within the overbank or fluvial facies associations, and are here interpreted to have lived in freshwater conditions. The Chondrites trace-makers are interpreted as having originated in shallow-marine waters and were transported into floodplain lakes by storm surge events, although a few examples suggest more significant transgressions. Ichnofossils are much more common than marine body fossils or scolecodonts, and thus record cryptic marine incursions that might otherwise remain unidentified. This study contributes to our understanding of the complex mosaic of environments present when terrestrial tetrapods first appeared.

Phylogenetic and environmental context of a Tournaisian tetrapod fauna.

The end-Devonian to mid-Mississippian time interval has long been known for its depauperate palaeontological record, especially for tetrapods. This interval encapsulates the time of increasing terrestriality among tetrapods, but only two Tournaisian localities previously produced tetrapod fossils. Here we describe five new Tournaisian tetrapods (Perittodus apsconditus, Koilops herma, Ossirarus kierani, Diploradus austiumensis and Aytonerpeton microps) from two localities in their environmental context. A phylogenetic analysis retrieved three taxa as stem tetrapods, interspersed among Devonian and Carboniferous forms, and two as stem amphibians, suggesting a deep split among crown tetrapods. We also illustrate new tetrapod specimens from these and additional localities in the Scottish Borders region. The new taxa and specimens suggest that tetrapod diversification was well established by the Tournaisian. Sedimentary evidence indicates that the tetrapod fossils are usually associated with sandy siltstones overlying wetland palaeosols. Tetrapods were probably living on vegetated surfaces that were subsequently flooded. We show that atmospheric oxygen levels were stable across the Devonian/Carboniferous boundary, and did not inhibit the evolution of terrestriality. This wealth of tetrapods from Tournaisian localities highlights the potential for discoveries elsewhere.

An assessment of engineered log jam structures in response to a flood event in an upland gravel‐bed river

AbstractEngineered log jams (ELJs) are employed to address river restoration goals and a range of river management problems including coarse sediment movement. In the Bowmont Water, a dynamic wandering gravel‐bed river in the Scottish Borders, 33 previously untested ELJs primarily designed to capture and store coarse sediment, were installed on a trial basis. Using repeated topographical surveys and field observations, the performance of the ELJs in response to a 5–10 year recurrence interval flood that occurred on the 25 September 2012 was evaluated at two reaches with catchment areas of 28 km2 and 57 km2. Three of the structures were damaged due to scour of surrounding material that exposed the pile anchors and all the timbers of one structure were completely displaced downstream. Sixteen structures induced geomorphic responses and only four induced significant deposition (>0.3 m) above that which would occur naturally within the adjacent active gravel bar deposition zones. The placement in gravel bars, minor channel blockage ratio created by the structures and their porous nature limited the hydraulic interference and in turn geomorphic responses. Therefore the ELJ placement goal of increasing sediment storage was not fully met. This study contributes to the empirical evidence base for ELJ performance evaluation of different designs in a range of physiographic settings needed to validate performance and refine design. Using these initial findings and knowledge gained from other studies, recommendations for improving the design and placement strategy are proposed. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The Morality of Livestock Farming

This article describes how livestock farmers respond to moral enquiries about their means of livelihood, by referring to ethnographic data collected in the Scottish Borders. The focus is on three controversial aspects of livestock farming: welfare issues of intensive farming methods, guilt about depriving nonhuman animals of their lives for food, and the moral dilemma of breeding and rearing animals merely to be killed. There was a feeling of uneasiness among farmers about sending the animals they looked after to the slaughterhouse. This, however, was rationalized with the recognition that livestock were bred and reared to be eaten in the first place. By examining farmers’ utterances, it is suggested that livestock farmers are conditioned to consider their vocation as a part of the social system, over which they have little control.

‘Store their Minds with Much Valuable Knowledge’: Agricultural Improvement at the Selkirk Subscription Library, 1799‐1814

AbstractThis article investigates the reception of agricultural improvement in the Scottish Borders, arguing that useful books and improving socialisation were mutually reinforcing in the Selkirk Subscription Library. Agricultural books were borrowed by farmers, clergymen, lawyers and medical men, who collaborated to found local debating societies and sponsor the production of improving literature. Their commitment to agricultural improvement is shown to have been one of several cultures of improvement in circulation at Selkirk, some dedicated to practical works of moral improvement and the cultivation of politeness in young minds, some to the patronage of local writers, local history and local traditions.

Can species-rich grasslands be established on former intensively managed arable soils?

Land use change from intensive arable production to extensively managed grassland is encouraged through subsidy payments to farmers under the European Union’s Common Agricultural Policy. Created grasslands are sown with a species-rich seed mix and receive limited or no fertiliser application, with the aim of increasing the provision of non-production ecosystem services. In the UK these agri-environment schemes are funded for periods of 5, 7 or 10 years. This study compared the plant diversity and soil properties of paired intensively managed (IM) arable and recently created (3, 5, 8 and 9 years) extensively managed species-rich grasslands (SRG) at 4 sites in the Scottish Borders. Botanical surveys of the newly created grassland plots showed limited establishment of the species-rich seed mixes and the dominance of grasses that favour more nutrient-rich environments. Soil properties at 0–10 and 30–40cm depths were measured over 2 consecutive years. Total and available soil nitrogen, phosphorus and soil organic carbon were not significantly different between paired plots. This study suggests that the residual nutrients from previous fertiliser applications may prevent the establishment of species-rich seed mixes for up to a decade after land use change from intensive arable to extensive grassland management.

The Deep Mapping of Pennine Street: A Cartographic Fiction

Pennine Street is a cartographic art experiment, twinning High Street 2012 in London with the Pennine Way, a long-distance footpath running between the Peak District and the Scottish Borders. Pennine Street was initially prompted by the London 2012 Olympic spectacle; more specifically, by the militarization of the Games through the proposed deployment of surface-to-air missiles at sites in London. The project initially took the form of three organized walks along the route of High Street 2012, from Aldgate to Stratford. Readings were made while walking on each occasion, and both photographic and textual collages emerged out of the initial walks. The project engages the idea of trespass as a political action, as both potent and futile, and traces the development of modes of photographic and textual “trespass”, or transgression. Textual collage is employed to investigate the possibility of articulating Pennine Street as a “space-between” the empirical and the imagined.

Ten-minute chat.

Pete Matthews works in mixed practice at Galedin Veterinary in the Scottish Borders. He has been a member of the Tweed Valley Mountain Rescue Team for eight years and last year took on the role of team leader for a three-year term.

A comparison of ecosystem services mapping tools for their potential to support planning and decision-making on a local scale

The inclusion of an ecosystem services framework into planning and decision-making processes is increasingly being seen as a means to further a better implementation of the Ecosystem Approach and to achieve a more sustainable allocation of resources. Tools are slowly emerging to help scientists and practitioners with mapping ecosystem services. This study reviewed three tools with regard to their potential use as standard tools to be employed in local planning. To this end, an email survey was conducted first to identify the most important criteria practitioners require in an ecosystem services mapping tool. InVEST and EcoServ-GIS were then applied to produce several ecosystem services maps for a small catchment in the Scottish Borders. These maps were compared to already existing maps produced with another method, SENCE. We showed that there can be substantial variations in maps produced with different tools. These reflect the differences between the tools, especially in their requirements for data, their user friendliness and their accuracy. Our comparison highlights that tools so far have had to make a compromise between usability and scientific accuracy, which means that practitioners need to carefully weigh the requirements for a specific project before deciding on the appropriate tool.

Sheila Helen Paterson dies

On 30 July 2015, Sheila Helen Paterson MRPharmS, aged 74, of Rothes, Aberlour, Banffshire. Mrs Paterson registered with the Society in 1965. She was a founder and first chair of the Scottish Borders branch of the Society and chair of the Aberdeen and North Eastern Scottish branch. Mrs Paterson served as a member of the […]

Beyond the rhetoric of an “inclusive national identity”: Understanding the potential impact of Scottish museums on public attitudes to issues of identity, citizenship and belonging in an age of migrations

Since devolution many museums in Scotland have attempted to represent national identity in plural and inclusive terms – emphasising regional and historical differences within the nation and highlighting the contribution of so-called “New Scots” to Scottish society. However, it remains to be seen whether attempts to deconstruct homogenous discourses of nationhood at the level of the state or institution are capable of radically altering individual understandings of national identity and belonging. Further empirical research is therefore needed into the way in which heritage is produced and negotiated in everyday social environments beyond the museum in order to understand what – if any – impact museums may have on challenging prejudice and producing inclusive definitions of national identity. Drawing on Mason's (2013) “cosmopolitan museology” and Rounds' (2006) theory of “identity work” in museums, this paper analyses the narratives of young people aged between 13 and 18 years old from six schools in Glasgow, Edinburgh, the Scottish Borders and the Western Isles. It argues that when negotiating national identity and cultural diversity, individuals adopt narrative strategies in order to accommodate new information without necessarily changing their own definitions of national heritage or attitudes towards minority groups. The implications of this finding for both museum practice in Scotland and the wider European context are considered.

Hefting onto Place: Intersecting Lives of Humans and Sheep on Scottish Hills Landscape

ABSTRACTThis paper analyzes the phenomenon called hefting of sheep onto the landscape of hill sheep farms in the Scottish Borders. It is based upon data collected during extended periods of ethnographic fieldwork beginning in 1981 and continuing to the present. Hefting is the term used by sheep farmers for the natural tendency of hill sheep to graze, remain, and bond onto specific areas of the landscape without the need for fencing. The herding practices of hill sheep farms appropriate hefting in flock management and breeding. The analysis of hefting makes two contributions to understanding human–animal relations. First, because the of the centrality of territorial bonding, hefting makes explicit that we should always be ready to include a third dimension—place and emplacement—in understanding human–animal relations. Second, drawing on Haraway's concept of “becoming with,” hefting and herding demonstrate the fundamentally relational character of human–animal–place relations.

First record of a polyplacophoran from the Southern Uplands of Scotland

Synopsis An intermediate sclerite of a paleoloricate chiton (Polyplacophora) collected from the Kirkcolm Formation (Ordovician, Lower Katian) of Kilbucho in the Scottish Borders (formerly Peeblesshire), Scotland represents the first record of the class in the Southern Uplands. The single Kilbucho specimen is morphologically distinct from documented taxa, and is described and figured here but left in open nomenclature.

A constant head well permeameter formula comparison: its significance in the estimation of field-saturated hydraulic conductivity in heterogeneous shallow soils

We evaluate the application and investigate various formulae (and the associated parameter sensitivities) using the constant head well permeameter method to estimate field-saturated hydraulic conductivity (Kfs) in a previously glaciated temperate landscape in the Scottish Borders where shallow soils constrain the depth of augering. In finer-textured soils, the Glover equation provided Kfs estimates nearly twice those of the Richards equation. For this environment, we preferred the Glover equation with a correction factor for the effect of gravity, which does not include soil capillarity effects because: (1) the low depth to diameter ratio of the auger holes (AH) required in the shallow stratified soils of temperate glaciated environment needs a correction for gravity; (2) the persistently moist environment and the use of long pre-wetting times before measurements seem to reduce the effect of soil capillarity; (3) the Richards equation is dependent on accurate α* values, but the measured AH intersected soil horizon boundaries that had different soil structure and texture, causing difficulty in selecting the most appropriate α* value; (4) when comparing the different solutions to estimate Kfs using the constant-head well permeameter method against the AH method and ponded permeameter measurements, the Glover solution with a correction for gravity gave the best comparable result in fine-textured soil.

Excavation across the Dere Street Roman Road at Dun Law, Scottish Borders

Dere Street Roman Road was strategically important to the Roman army. It was built in the late 1st century ad to enable the advance of the Roman Army, commanded by Agricola, into the hostile territories of what is now Scotland. This eastern arterial road linked the Roman legionary forts of Eburacum (York) and Inchtuthil near Perth, and continued to be used through the medieval period, its longevity of use standing as a testament to Roman engineering and road construction. In 2007 an archaeological excavation made an exciting discovery which sheds new light on construction techniques employed by Agricola’s legionnaires and demonstrates their adaptive ability to use whatever local resources were at hand to engineer a solution for crossing difficult terrain. As an archaeological response to a proposal to extend the existing Dun Law Windfarm, excavations were conducted by CFA Archaeology Ltd across what was believed to be the course of Dere Street running across Dun Law, a prominent, but wet and boggy, hillside in the Scottish Borders (NGR: NT 4643 5663). The excavations discovered a surviving section of the road, which at that point traversed a palaeochannel by means of a latticework of logs and a mat of branchwood.

Inertia in an ombrotrophic bog ecosystem in response to 9 years' realistic perturbation by wet deposition of nitrogen, separated by form

Wet deposition of nitrogen (N) occurs in oxidized (nitrate) and reduced (ammonium) forms. Whether one form drives vegetation change more than the other is widely debated, as field evidence has been lacking. We are manipulating N form in wet deposition to an ombrotrophic bog, Whim (Scottish Borders), and here report nine years of results. Ammonium and nitrate were provided in rainwater spray as NH4 Cl or NaNO3 at 8, 24 or 56kgNha(-1) yr(-1) , plus a rainwater only control, via an automated system coupled to site meteorology. Detrimental N effects were observed in sensitive nonvascular plant species, with higher cumulative N loads leading to more damage at lower annual doses. Cover responses to N addition, both in relation to form and dose, were species specific and mostly dependent on N dose. Some species were generally indifferent to N form and dose, while others were dose sensitive. Calluna vulgaris showed a preference for higher N doses as ammonium N and Hypnum jutlandicum for nitrate N. However, after 9years, the magnitude of change from wet deposited N on overall species cover is small, indicating only a slow decline in key species. Nitrogen treatment effects on soil N availability were likewise small and rarely correlated with species cover. Ammonium caused most N accumulation and damage to sensitive species at lower N loads, but toxic effects also occurred with nitrate. However, because different species respond differently to N form, setting of ecosystem level critical loads by N form is challenging. We recommend implementing the lowest value of the critical load range where communities include sensitive nonvascular plants and where ammonium dominates wet deposition chemistry. In the context of parallel assessment at the same site, N treatments for wet deposition showed overall much smaller effects than corresponding inputs of dry deposition as ammonia.

Medieval Floor and Roof Tiles from Melrose Abbey, Scottish Borders, and the ‘Westminster Tilers’

AN ASSEMBLAGE OF more than 2500 fragments of tile was recovered from within the precinct of Melrose Abbey during excavations in 2009. The collection includes a large group of decorated floor tiles, the designs of which have links with the ‘Westminster School’, and which are unlike any other previously excavated at the abbey. This paper places the group in context and considers the implications of the find.

Britain's root canal

David Weight, a senior consultant at AECOM, released a paper outlining ambitious plans to build a large canal with electrical power down the spine of Britain. With a construction price tag of some £14bn, the multi-functional canal would transfer water from the Scottish Borders to the south of England, offer a sustainable alternative to road and rail freight, and eventually co-exist with high voltage DC lines.

AB0252 Traps syndrome in a three generation greek family with long lasting recurrent fevers

BackgroundTumor necrosis factor receptor associated periodic fever syndrome (TRAPS) is an autosomal dominant inherited periodic fever syndrome caused by mutation of the 55kDa TNF receptor superfamily A1 gene,TNFRSF1A.TRAPS is defined...

The Obligations of Kinship and Alliance within Governance in the Scottish Borders, 1528-1625

The importance of kinship and lordship in determining relationships within medieval Scotland has long been acknowledged. In the late sixteenth century, however, Scotland underwent an intensification of government in which the crown increasingly drew judicial processes within its own remit, replacing the private justice dispensed by regional elites with the public justice of the central courts in Edinburgh. The assumption might therefore be that the older obligations of kinship and lordship would have been overridden by the newly persistent demands for personal accountability to the crown. This article demonstrates instead that such obligations were still significant in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, and that processes associated with traditional private justice were now being used in an unprecedented way by a Scottish crown, increasingly intolerant of violent crime. Familial and fictive familial obligations continued to shape how early modern Scottish society was organized and regulated.