ABSTRACT

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 stratigraphies; new documentary evidence, specifically on the local environment and land use provided much detail. In Part I, we analyse the early 14th century landscape of the ‘low road’ to Stirling, across the coastal plain. This has been mis-interpreted by historians less concerned than us with detail. We have re-defined the complexity of the coastal plain, emphasized its dynamism, identified natural hazards that may have influenced decision-making by the combatants, including a new understanding of the Bannock Burn itself, debated with new evidence but not resolved key aspects of the land cover, and suggested a setting for the battle itself.

摘要

班诺克本在英格兰和苏格兰的中世纪历史中具有极其重要的意义。战斗发生在哪里，地形，地方是什么样子，仍然是未知数。本文的两个部分通过生成有关环境和土地利用重建的新数据来检验这些问题。景观的物理外观是用放射性碳重建的（¹⁴C) 地貌年代测定和沉积地层古环境分析；新的文件证据，特别是关于当地环境和土地使用的证据提供了很多细节。在第一部分中，我们分析了 14 世纪早期穿过沿海平原通往斯特灵的“低路”景观。这被历史学家误解为比我们更关心细节。我们重新定义了沿海平原的复杂性，强调了它的活力，确定了可能影响战斗人员决策的自然灾害，包括对班诺克烧伤本身的新认识，与新证据进行了辩论，但没有解决关键方面的问题土地覆盖，并为战斗本身提出了一个设置。