Walking in the Footsteps of Scottish Prisoners of War - Methods and Approaches in Recreating and Documenting a Forced March

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Paper / Report Submission (General Sessions)", at the 2023 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

Following the Battle of Dunbar on the 3rd of September 1650, about 4,000 Scottish prisoners of war were forced to march south to England. Their destination - the nearest building sizeable enough to imprison a vast number of individuals: Durham Cathedral. Over the span of a week, the Scots marched over one hundred miles, with limited provisions. Nearly one thousand perished, some at the hands of English officers, others from dysentery and starvation.

In July 2023, we shall embark on an experimental archaeological project, walking nearly 250km from Dunbar to Durham in the Scots' honour. Guided by historical documents, we shall rest at the same locations as the Scots, while maintaining the diet of a 17th century Scotsman known to us through archaeological evidence. This paper discusses the methodological approaches implemented to piece together the feasibility of such an event and our media-based approaches for documenting the sensorial experiences.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Paper / Report Submission (General Sessions)   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2023

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Nicole Haddow