The Flora MacDonald Project was initiated in 1995, in an effort to explore how landscape archaeology and targeted excavation can reveal new evidence for the impact of British industrialisation upon eighteenth and nineteenth century rural life. The project is led by James Symonds of ARCUS, University of Sheffield.

This is an interdisciplinary project, exploring the landscape and post-medieval settlement history of the Hebridean Island of South Uist. The study area is centred upon Milton, a town (baile) of the early eighteenth century, and birthplace of Flora MacDonald, heroine of the ‘45. Undertaking archaeological survey and excavation, the project will examine the responses of the eighteenth and nineteenth century Hebridean population to the social and economic changes wrought by agricultural ‘Improvement’, and the infamous ‘Highland Clearances’.

The selection of a study area in a peripheral geographical region was based on a desire to investigate the so called ‘Celtic Fringe’. The project has succeeded in generating data to challenge the orthodoxy of Anglo-centric scholarship, and accepted narratives of the British industrial revolution and the spread of agrarian capitalism. South Uist was also chosen for study for its folklore interest, and from a desire to investigate social memory and the construction of Highland mythologies.

Contact James Symonds at j.symonds@sheffield.ac.uk

http://www.shef.ac.uk/arcus/recentflora.html